Beau discovers that time, the war, the Spanish Flu, and a dark family secret have left the Charleston he remembered unrecognizable, so he returns to Paris to live as a painter.
On separate but intertwining paths, Beau and Keeby are swept up in what Gertrude Stein called the Lost Generation, two aspirants mired in the panoramic parade of ambitious expats seeking fame and fortune in the world of arts and letters.
Then, drunken and desperate, Beau one night makes a fateful choice that will change both their lives-forever.
22 Rue Montparnasse is a tale about high aspirations and bad decisions, with cameo appearances by the likes of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Tsugahiro Foujita, Ernest Hemingway, Georges Brach, Amedeo Modigliani, Misia Sert, Coco Chanel, and Ezra Pound.
"...At the heart of Helms's novel are questions of what to make of new possibilities and dreads in a world shattered by war at an industrial scale. Helms relishes the dishy pleasures of Paris salon culture, imagining sharp, inspired colloquies with Stein, Pound, Rimbaud, and more, but rather than simple celebrity cameos these encounters suggest the new ways of living, seeing, and creating...The storytelling is fleet and crisp, the prose as pleasurable as the "croissants and Normandy butter and sweet French fruit preserves" that break these characters' fasts...Moving novel of the lost generation of soldiers and artists in Paris after WWI."
--Publishers Weekly Booklife
"...Helms does a phenomenal job of conveying the mood of postwar Paris with his prose... The theme of people finding themselves irrevocably changed by the Great War is similarly enthralling ...Helms presents an incredibly engaging tale with quick-witted dialogue and a view into a historical period that feels both emotionally honest and charmingly nostalgic...Riveting and humorous-a great choice for history buffs who enjoy a bit of decadence."
--Kirkus Reviews