The well known novelist of the Paris slums and underworld turns to the memoir form, writing in tranquil, impressionistic manner of his childhood and literary beginnings. Moods rather than events, ""fugitive confidences"" form the substance of the book. Villefranche, the small town where he spent his early years, formative influences, Verlaine, Daudelaire, on to Lyons where he was schooled and where he was first attracted by the murky, degenerate bypaths of the underworld. Souvenirs of people known, writers, poets, prostitutes, with occasional divagations on art and literature.