Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Street of the Seven Angels
    Street of the Seven Angels
    Street of the Seven Angels
    Ebook243 pages3 hours

    Street of the Seven Angels

    By John Howard Griffin

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A social satire set in Paris, this previously unpublished novel is based in part on the U.S. Supreme Court's censorship trial regarding the author's first novel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWings Press
    Release dateApr 1, 2003
    ISBN9781609401146
    Street of the Seven Angels

    Read more from John Howard Griffin

    Related to Street of the Seven Angels

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Brandon-Croft, Tate, Millner, and More

      Feb 7, 2023

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new release titles from Barbara Brandon-Croft, Dizz Tate, Maggie Millner, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to h

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Books Briefing: What to Read This Summer

      May 28, 2021

      Works that evoke feelings of wonder about the universe, offer smart observations about life, and more: Your weekly guide to the best in books

      6 min read

    • Article

      In Which a Susan Sontag Fan Learns to Love Her Fiction

      Nov 16, 2017

      To say I love Susan Sontag’s writing means I must come to terms with the fact that much of her fiction just isn’t that good. The post In Which a Susan Sontag Fan Learns to Love Her Fiction appeared first on The Millions.

      10 min read

    • Article

      In Which a Susan Sontag Fan Learns to Love Her Fiction

      Nov 16, 2017

      To say I love Susan Sontag’s writing means I must come to terms with the fact that much of her fiction just isn’t that good. The post In Which a Susan Sontag Fan Learns to Love Her Fiction appeared first on The Millions.

      10 min read

    • Article

      Mantel's Pieces

      Nov 15, 2023

      A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing Hilary Mantel John Murray £25 ‘On Sunday last, I had a shock waking up to find that my novel Wolf Hall was 2-1 favourite to win the Man Booker prize.’ So wrote Hilary Mantel in September 2009. ‘It was alm

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 259

      Jun 5, 2023

      The Art of Fiction No. 259
      32 min read

    • Article

      Reinvention And Rediscoveries

      May 26, 2022

      THE LOT OF THE model-slash-actor-turned-author is not a happy one. Think of poor Naomi Campbell, who reportedly had not even read “her” ghostwritten novel Swan when it was published in 1994. Comedians generally fare better at the novelling game than

      6 min read

    • Article

      5 Books Making News This Week: Refugees and Religious Conversions

      Mar 7, 2017

      The 2016 Barnes and Noble Discover Awards for the best books published last year go to Abby Geni’s The Lightkeepers (fiction) and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted (nonfiction). Mohsin Hamid casts a refugee as the hero in his fourth novel, Hideo Yokoyama’s f

      6 min read

    • Article

      The 15 Best Books of 2019

      Dec 24, 2019

      The 15 Best Books of 2019
      9 min read

    • Article

      What We’re Reading This Summer

      Jun 28, 2019

      Atlantic staffers pick 14 books to spend time with this season, including Freshwater, Republic of Spin, Killing and Dying, and more.

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Genius of Terry Southern

      Mar 18, 2019

      The Genius of Terry Southern
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Street of the Seven Angels

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Street of the Seven Angels - John Howard Griffin

      reprint.

      PART ONE

      THE FIRST TUESDAY

      However innocent a thing may be,

      men can still discover a crime in it.

      —Molière

      1

      It‧s almost five. Claudine called from the rear of Mademoiselle Mailleferre‧s Religious Arts Shop. May I go now, Mademoiselle?

      Did you hang the new scapulars on the rack? Mademoiselle Mailleferre asked.

      Yes, Mademoiselle …

      The proprietress bent her tall figure slightly forward and peered through the cluttered gloom toward her helper.

      Did you arrange Father Trissotin‧s pamphlets on the display stand?

      Claudine‧s work-rough hand flew to her mouth.

      Where‧s your mind, child? Mademoiselle sighed. She rubbed her fingertips into her temples. Well, run fix them, and then you can go.

      Dear God, there were still a thousand things to do before tonight‧s meeting.

      Arrange them neatly, she called to Claudine. Put them on top of the other booklets. Father Trissotin will be here tonight and I don‧t want him to think I‧m not pushing his …

      I am, Mademoiselle, the girl sang out.

      The proprietress turned toward the front display window and glanced out into the narrow rain-slicked street. Behind her she heard the rapid shuffle of pamphlets and snatches of that popular song Claudine frequently hummed.

      Now what? She would have to build a little fire in the furnace so the ladies would have some heat when they met in her upstairs salon. And tea for them. And she‧d have to go out in the vile weather and buy butter cookies and tarts. Impossible to trust Claudine with such a mission. She started past the shoulder of a life-size plaster statue of St. Joseph. Through her rain-stippled window she watched men in berets carry long loaves of unwrapped bread under their arms as they hurried to get their aperitifs before going home to supper. The Cafe Zeus around the corner on Boulevard St. Jacques would be rushed for the next hour. By the same token, the green metal public urinal down on the corner, in the center promenade of the boulevard, would have a constant stream of men.

      A gray draft horse, its back slick with rain, strained to pull a coal cart up the steep incline past her shop. The rattle of metal-rimmed wheels on cobblestones overwhelmed the tinkle of her entry bell when the door beside her opened.

      Her eyes dulled. She nodded briefly to old Flamart, the stone mason.

      The little one is still here? he asked, shoving his beret back respectfully.

      In the back.

      Grandpapa! Claudine cried with an enthusiasm that Mademoiselle found almost unendurable. The girl ran forward between counters of rosaries, missals and ceramic statues of the Sacred Heart. She hugged the old man and then stood back to admire him.

      How handsome you are!

      Mademoiselle heard Flamart laugh with embarrassment.

      You‧ve been to the baths?

      No, he snorted as though the question were somehow insulting.

      But you smell so …

      I just went over to the Breville Museum. I washed and changed clothes there.

      How?

      In the men‧s room. It‧s nice there.

      You didn‧t!

      Mademoiselle turned back to the window and tried to ignore their gigglings and mutterings.

      Honestly, she thought, wasn‧t that something to get excited about? An old man washes and changes clothes. It was said around the neighborhood that, despite his great age, he frequented Madame Culuhac‧s girls once a week. Mademoiselle had little doubt this was the night. She shut out the hint of tenderness for him and forced herself to be revolted. Anyway, was it not slightly unethical to bathe in the men‧s room of a public art museum? She craned to look up the street where the gray façade of the Breville Museum flaunted its Roman columns. She had only been inside once, seventeen years ago. And then she had not got past the foyer where a gigantic statue of Michelangelo‧s David rose naked in all its marble warmth beside the equally life-size figure of a Greek obscenity called The Reclining Diana. Her confessor, in view of her violently disturbed reaction—she had actually vomited—had suggested that she avoid the place for a while. Occasionally, in unguarded moments, the entire scene would appear before her eyes, as vivid now as it had been seventeen years ago when she first viewed it as a girl of twenty. She would recall with wonder the extraordinary manner in which the artist had made the veins in the marble match nature‧s veins in David‧s buttocks. She shook her head to rid herself of the uncomfortable vision.

      "Take my work clothes home when you go this evening,

      eh petite?" she heard Flamart say.

      All right, Grandpapa—you sure smell good.

      Mademoiselle Mailleferre closed out another image, this time of the old man standing in front of one of the basins in the Museum‧s men‧s room, grandly soaping himself with tax-purchased castile. Certainly it was meant for hand washing, not for cleansing the whole body. And what if some dignitary—a person like de Gaulle, or a Cardinal, or a venerable conductor—were to walk into the men‧s room and be confronted by such a sight? Would he reach past Flamart‧s wet nakedness and say Pardon me, may I use the soap? Not likely. It might not bother Flamart, but it would certainly give the dignitary a poor impression of the district.

      Three small boys in heavy jackets and short pants attracted her attention back to the narrow street directly in front of her shop. They chalked MERDE on the soaked brick wall of the Dominican Novitiate. And you could be sure, Mademoiselle told herself, they would be right there at the altar rail next Sunday to take Christ Jesus into their little bodies.

      With the exception of her shop and, to a lesser extent, those Dominicans across the street, the quarter was inhabited by this type. Most of them were earth-bound humans of the most vulgar stamp, natural beings who worked all day and then purchased their bread and went home to their animal existence every evening. Had she not only last week noticed an article in the Figaro Litteraire which said it was not unusual for French couples to make love three times a

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1