Carl Van Vechten, one of America's most eclectic men of letters, published six novels, two works on cats, and eleven collections of his critical essays on the arts. Although comfortable enough as the youngest son of prosperous parents in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he was born and raised, Van Vechten yearned for more exciting and exotic influences even as a child. In his continual search for expressions of genius in the art world, Van Vechten never discovered a more satisfying place than Paris.

As a writer of novels suffused with civilized humor, Van Vechten concentrated, he said, on "treating extremely serious themes as frivolously as possible." His first novel, published in 1922, perfectly blends these aims, presenting a whimsical chronicle of the author's experiences in Paris, Florence, and New York high society, thinly disguised as the story of a dissatisfied young genius known by Van Vechten. Peter Whiffle His...