Authors: Anne Bernays

Back Then (38 page)

ANNE BERNAYS
, a novelist and writing teacher, is the author of eight novels, including
Professor Romeo
and
Growing Up Rich
, as well as two works of nonfiction, including
The Language of Names
, written with Justin Kaplan, and
What If?
, written with Pamela Painter. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous major publications, among them
The Nation
, the
New York Times, Town & Country
, and
Sports Illustrated
.

JUSTIN KAPLAN
, a biographer and editor, is the author of
Mr.Clemens and Mark Twain
, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award. Among the many other books he has written or edited are
Walt Whitman: A Life
and
Lincoln Steffens: A Biography
. Kaplan is the general editor of
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations;
a contributor to the
New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, American Heritage, American Scholar
, and
The Yale Review;
and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Bernays and Kaplan have three daughters and six grandchildren and live in Cambridge and Truro, Massachusetts.

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ALSO BY ANNE BERNAYS

NOVELS

Professor Romeo

The Address Book

The School Book

Growing Up Rich

The First to Know

Prudence, Indeed

The New York Ride

Short Pleasures

NONFICTION

The Language of Names
(with Justin Kaplan)

What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers
(with Pamela Painter)

ALSO BY JUSTIN KAPLAN

Walt Whitman: A Life

Mark Twain and His World

Lincoln Steffens: A Biography

Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography

The Language of Names
(with Anne Bernays)

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
(general editor)

PRAISE FOR
BACK THEN

“In a duet of perfectly matched voices, [Bernays and Kaplan] recount with verve how it felt to be a young adult living under the shadow of The Bomb and McCarthyism in the sunshine of a still-vibrant metropolis .Â .Â . rich anecdotes on virtually every page and sharply ironic prose. .Â .Â . Like a Porter melody, the recollections of these saucy, urbane lovers linger and prompt smiles of affection for a bygone era.”

â
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“A portrait of a time as full of possibility as it was jittery with anxiety. .Â .Â . This is a memoir about the grounded, clear-eyed love of two people for each other and âthe city of cities, the home of all you love and all you despise, the place of temptation and its opposite, namely the imposition of self-discipline.'”

â
New York Observer

“The real star [of
Back Then
] is a place, not a person.
Back Then
is flattering to New Yorkers .Â .Â . in its insinuation that life after the city, no matter how distinguished, can only be a mere coda.”

â
New York
magazine

“A lively collaboration. .Â .Â . Readers interested in the city's remarkable literary history will find this polished duet alluring and pleasing.”

â
Booklist

“A nostalgic glimpse of the city before it became the millennium capital of the world .Â .Â . that's hard to resist. .Â .Â . Captivating.”

â
Entertainment Weekly

“Both writers capture the diverse sounds and sense of various subcultures in the city: bohemian, literary, Jewish, upper-crust. .Â .Â . A hymn to the city of their youth.”

â
Publishers Weekly

“Novelist Bernays and biographer Kaplan .Â .Â . have written separate narratives of their younger personal and professional lives that, artfully interwoven, provide a vivid picture of what it was like to be gifted in 1950s New York City, when a heady sense of opportunity and possibility prevailed. In a lighthearted style, this work says much about all the things that made the 1950s a unique decade in American life.”

â
Library Journal

A portion of chapter 12 appeared in slightly different form in
Fame
magazine.

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2002 by William Morrow, an imprint
of HarperCollins Publishers.

B
ACK THEN
. Copyright Â© 2002 by Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First Perennial edition published 2003.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Bernays, Anne.

Â Â Â Â Back then : two lives in 1950s New York / Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â p. cm.

Â Â Â Â ISBN 0-06-019855-9

Â Â Â Â EPub Edition November 2013 ISBN 9780062337894

1. Bernays, AnneâHomes and hauntsâNew York (State)âNew York. 2. Kaplan, JustinâHomes and hauntsâNew York (State)âNew York. 3. New York (N.Y.)âSocial life and customsâ20th century. 4. New York (N.Y.)âIntellectual lifeâ20th
century. 5. Novelists, Americanâ20th centuryâBiography. 6. BiographersâUnited StatesâBiography. I. Kaplan, Justin. II. Title.

PS3552.E728 Z463 2002

813'.54âdc21