From My Bookshelf: Jim Fergus

A Colorado cowboy wants to enlist to fight in WWI. He leaves on horseback to get passage on a ship to France. He and Crazy Horse seem to lead a charmed life amid the rain of bullets and incendiary devices, and so the legend of “The Cowboy Courier” was born.

Meanwhile, in rural France, a young girl begs her father, the Colonel, for a “good story” from his war experiences. So twelve year old Chrysis hears about the Cowboy Courier, and how both he and Crazy Horse spent time actually in the trenches with her father and his troops.

Chrysis goes to Paris in the 1920s to study art. She is rebellious, passionate about art and a free spirit who dresses to suit her self, dances at jazz clubs and participates in all the sensual pleasures of Montparnasse nightlife.

The two meet, fall in love and live an idyllic life for several years. But as Chrysis becomes more successful in the art world, her parents visit one of her showings. Her father gives the Cowboy an ultimatum and lives are forever changed.

There are many historical figures in this novel and we get a good idea of Paris in the 1920s. Painters, writers, coffee houses, jazz clubs, brothels, art models – we see it all through the eyes of both Chrysis and Lambert. This is a good little read.