From winking at his readers' familiarity with the effects of hashish while recounting the fascinating past lives of the Hôtel de Lauzun, (onetime residence of Cardinal Mazarin's grand-niece - whose father, incidentally, had her front teeth pulled in an unsuccessful attempt to stave off marriage proposals - and later, the affected and afflicted poet Baudelaire) to candid discussions of his own experiences cruising the city's lesser-known gay meeting spots, there is a level of intimacy here that is not typically found in other travelogues.

White does presume a certain sophistication among his audience while disclosing these city secrets. A walk around the jazz-drenched fringes of Montmartre finds White sharing energetic cameos of African-American expatriates such as Josephine Baker (the recipient of 2,000 marriage proposals within two years of hitting the town) and musician Sidney Bechet (unknown at home but an icon of success in France, complete with wife, mistress, and two mansions.) A stop at an unremarkable rue de Rivoli café leads White into a hotbed of antirepublican/proroyalist political sentiment, complete with modern-day dissolute, bankrupt dukes and wild allegations of ski slope beheadings. White uses his skills as a polished writer, erudite gossip, and intellectual magpie (indeed, the impressive and useful informal bibliography 'Further Reading' section of the book validates the quicksilver breadth of White's research) to bring us along with him arm-in-arm on his rambles. Under his tutelage, we encounter the relatively undiscovered haunts and untold stories of the artists and writers, tycoons and spendthrifts, immigrants and royals who have shaped modern Parisian - and European - culture. White's celebration of loitering as the best and truest form of travel discovery will resonate with anyone who has ever dared to toss away a tourist office map or 'wasted' an afternoon people-watching. Indeed, The Flâneur can - and perhaps should - be read as a companion piece to the novel, or vice versa the wonderful synergy of story and place between the works greatly enhances two already thought-provoking reads.

His first nonfiction work about the city, Our Paris: Sketches from Memory, was published in 1995 and in his latest and finest novel, The Married Man, the city assumes its own weight of character.

in 1998, White knows his subject with an intimacy that is enviable and effortless. After having spent the better part of two decades living and writing in la ville de la lumière before coming back to the U.S. The Paris of The Flâneur - loosely translated as one who strolls, seemingly without purpose or set destination - is a return to the familiar in more ways than one for Edmund White.

The flaneur by edmund white