In the closing decades of the nineteenth century Minnesota
produced three young men of great talent who each went east to
become writers. Two of them became famous: F. Scott Fitzgerald and
Sinclair Lewis. This is the story of the third man: Charles Macomb
Flandrau.
Flandrau, a model of style and worldly sophistication and
destined, almost everyone agreed, for greatness, was among the most
talented young writers of his generation. His short stories about
Harvard in the 1890s were called OC the first realistic description
of undergraduate life in American collegesOCO and sold out of the
first printing in a few weeks. From 1899 to 1902 Flandrau was among
the most popular contributors to the "Saturday Evening Post."
Alexander Woollcott rated him the best essayist in America. And
"Viva Mexico ," FlandrauOCOs account of life on a Mexican coffee
plantation, is a classic, perhaps the best travel book ever written
by an American. Yet Flandrau turned his back on it all. Financially
independent, he chose a solitary, epicurean life in St. Paul,
Mexico, Majorca, Paris, and Normandy. In later years, he confined
his writing to local newspaper pieces and letters to his small
circle of family and friends.
Using excerpts from these newspaper columns and unpublished
letters, Larry Haeg has painstakingly recreated the story of this
urbane, talented, witty, lazy, enigmatic, supremely private man who
never reached the peak of literary success to which his talent
might have taken him.
This very readable biography provides a detailed and honest
portrayal of Flandrau and his times. It will fascinate readers
interested in writersOCO life stories and scholars of American
literature as well as general readers interested in midwestern
literary history."
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