Two-Sided Paris
In Laila Amine’s article “The Paris Paradox: Colorblindness and Colonialism in African American Expatriate Fiction” and the chapter "Romance and Brotherhood" in her book Postcolonial Paris: Fictions of Intimacy in the City of Light, she argues that the fictional writings of Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Willian Gardner Smith portray Paris in terms of colorblindness through interracial romantic relationships, but paradoxically, their portrayals also complicate that notion through portraying homosocial relationships with Algerians, who are subject to harassment, abuse, and murder by French police (741). In developing this argument, she demonstrates that there are two sides of Paris in African-American expatriate fiction during this period. One side is “on the Left Bank of the Seine River” and “is a site of acceptance where African American men gain access to the privileges of patriarchy,” namely “interracial intimacy” (724). This intimacy is both heterosexual and homosocial, but she emphasizes heterosexual romance. The other Paris is “north of the city,” where “Algerian men [are] segregated, monitored, and subject to police violence,” and it is “a site of recognition rallying African Americans and colonial subjects as ‘brother’” (742). She analyzes these two sides of Paris in Wright’s “Island of Hallucination,” Baldwin’s “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon,” and Smith’s The Stone Face. She shows that Baldwin expands on Wright’s “Island,” and Smith expands on Baldwin’s “This Morning.”
Lamar’s Rendezvous Eighteenth advances the trope that Amine examines in African-American expatriate fiction. In Rendezvous Eighteenth, Ricky’s interracial relationships are set in the Eighteenth Arrondissement, and his homosocial relationships are set on both sides of the Seine. In this way, Lamar alters the spatial trope of earlier expatriate fiction. Also, Lamar’s protagonist, Ricky, lives and works in the Eighteenth Arrondissement, which is the area of African-American and Algerian brotherhood. Within and beyond the Eighteenth Arrondissement, Lamar integrates interracial and homosocial relationships that challenge black migration narratives of inclusion.
