Milking the Moon - by Katherine Clark

About the Book

The author, born in Mobile, Alabama, lived in various locales, enjoyed the company of many luminaries, had such adventures as a role in Fellini's 8 1/2, and "went wherever his fancy and whimsy led him." His "Cast of characters," provides remarkable, brief glimpses of such personalities as Djuna Barnes, Bricktop, Alfred Chester, Federico Fellini, Josephine Herbst, James Laughlin, Carson McCullers, Gertrude Stein, and many, many others.

Book Synopsis

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDThis sumptuous oral biography of Eugene Walter, the best-known man you've never heard of, is an eyewitness history of the heart of the last century--enlivened with personal glimpses of luminaries from William Faulkner and Martha Graham to Judy Garland and Leontyne Price--and a pitch-perfect addition to the Southern literary tradition that has critics cheering.In his 76 years, Eugene Walter ate of "the ripened heart of life," to quote a letter from Isak Dinesen, one of his many illustrious friends. Walter savored the porch life of his native Mobile, Alabama, in the the l920s and '30s; stumbled into the Greenwich Village art scene in late-1940s New York; was a ubiquitous presence in Paris's expatriate café society in the 1950s (where he was part of the Paris Review at its inception); and later, in 1960s Rome, participated in the golden age of Italian cinema. He was somehow everywhere, bringing with him a unique and contagious spirit, putting his inimitable stamp on the cultural life of the twentieth century.