{"product_id":"trains-of-thought-victor-brombert-9780393051155","title":"Trains of Thought: Paris to Omaha Beach, Memories of a Wartime Youth","description":"Paris in the 1930s--melancholy, erotic, intensely politicized--provides the poetic beginning for this remarkable autobiography by one of America's most renowned literary scholars. In \u003cem\u003eTrains of Thought\u003c\/em\u003e Victor Brombert recaptures the story of his youth in a Proustian reverie, recalling, with a rare combination of humor and tenderness, his childhood in France, his family's escape to America during the Vichy regime, his experiences in the U.S. Army from the invasion of Normandy to the occupation of Berlin, and his discovery of his scholarly vocation. In shimmering prose, Brombert evokes his upbringing in Paris's upper-middle-class 16th arrondissement, a world where \"the sweetness of things\" masked the class tensions and political troubles that threatened the stability of the French democracy. Using the train as a metaphor to describe his personal journey, Brombert recalls his boyhood enchantment with railway travel--even imagining that he had been conceived on a sleeper. But the young Brombert sensed that \"the poetry of the railroad also had its darker side, for there was the turmoil of departures, the terror . . . of being pursued by a gigantic locomotive, the nightmare of derailments, or of being trapped in a tunnel.\" With time, Brombert became acutely aware of the grimmer aspects of life around him--the death of his sister, Nora, on an operating table, the tragic disappearance of his boyhood love, Dany, with her infant child, and the mounting cries of \"Sale Juif,\" or \"dirty Jew,\" that grew from a whisper into a thundering din as the decade drew to a close. The invasion of May 1940 dispelled the optimistic belief, shared by most of the French nation, that the horrors that had descended on Germany could never happen to them. The family was forced to flee from Paris, first to Nice, then to Spain, and finally across the Atlantic on a banana freighter to America. Discovering the excitement of New York, Brombert nonetheless hoped to return to France in an American uniform once the United States entered the war. He joined the U.S. Army in 1943, and soon found himself with General Patton's old \"Hell-on-Wheels\" division at Omaha Beach, then in Paris at the time of its liberation, and later at the Battle of the Bulge. The final chapter concludes with Brombert's return to America, his enrollment at Yale University, and the beginning of a literary voyage whose origins are poignantly captured in this coming-of-age story. \u003cem\u003eTrains of Thought\u003c\/em\u003e is a virtuosic accomplishment, and a memoir that is likely to become a classic account of both memory and experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Victor Brombert\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0393051153\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780393051155\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e W. W. Norton \u0026amp; Company\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/17\/2002\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 320\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.43lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.54h x 6.50w x 1.13d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/01\/2002 pg. 630\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/13\/2002 pg. 60\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/01\/2002 pg. 1671\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/15\/2002 pg. 75\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/30\/2002 pg. 6\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/07\/2002 pg. 41\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/08\/2002 pg. 72\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/01\/2002 pg. 616\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/16\/2002","brand":"Victor Brombert","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44076038815999,"sku":"9780393051155","price":25.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_bb018cb1-c607-40a1-883f-996b3697a151.jpg?v=1685462827","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/trains-of-thought-victor-brombert-9780393051155","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}