TO LIVE AS WE WISH

Here is the emotionally homeless international set who commute between Paris and New York, egocentric and overwrought. The hero here is Victor Yatsenko, a Russian emigre, who, when he became an American citizen, took the name of Walter Jackson. An embryo play-wright, he works as interpreter for what Pembroke, an emigre movie producer, calls ""The Disunited Nations"". (Yatsenko's first play is here published in its entirety, including stage directions, and, based on a little known incident involving Lafayette, it is mangled further by Pembroke to fit it for successful Hollywood production.) The other members of the set are the slightly sinister and curiously idealistic money man from ""International Wall Street"", Yatsenko's overblown mistress, Nadia, who is determined to play herself in the film version of his play, Professor Ferguson who is an American physiochemist having a last fling in Paris with mad, morphine-addicted Tonie, etc., etc., etc...... If you can get as worked up about them as they do, for instance, about a mystical ritualistic society -- this is for you. If not, you may find it often tiresome, long drawn out and involved.