Galantière: The Lost Generation’s Forgotten Man

Lurie’s dutiful biography of Lewis Galantière (1895–1977), his first cousin once removed, tells a clear-cut tale of a man who crossed paths with Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce, among many other literary notables, helping them in significant ways. Galantière grew up in a tenement in Chicago and was educated at a settlement house, a reformist educational institution of the era; by the time he was a teenage he was fluent in French and deeply conversant in European literature. He worked as a clerk at a prominent Chicago bookstore and met many authors there, including Anderson, whom he befriended. After Galantière’s French skills gained him a position with the U.S. legation to the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, Anderson asked him to find a French translator for Winesburg, Ohio. Anderson introduced Galantière to Hemingway, and Galantière wrote a rave review of Hemingway’s first short story collection. Galantière also wrote plays with John Houseman, translated novels by Antoine de Saint-Exupèry, and served variously as president of PEN America, a Federal Reserve Bank economist, and an ACLU director. Lurie’s straightforward biography may not fully restore Galantière’s name to literary history, but it draws an appealing portrait of a man who made his own way among the literati of his day. [em](BookLife) [/em]