John Roderigo Dos Passos, social and political chronicler, was born John Roderigo Madison in a Chicago hotel. His father, John Randolph Dos Passos, a prominent attorney, and his mother, Lucy Madison, a Maryland gentlewoman, were not married until 1910. Because of his parents' unconventional relationship, Dos Passos spent much of his childhood traveling abroad with his mother. This "hotel childhood," as he later described it, established his lifelong penchant for travel and his love of Europe.

Dos Passos's association with France began when he was very young, and his knowledge of the language was quite thorough. He especially loved Paris and often worked and partied there, but he remembers in The Best Times (1966) that he dreaded the "huddle of literary expatriates round Montparnasse." He explains further, "Of course Hemingway was an exception, just as Cummings was an exception. In the private universe I was arranging for myself, literary people...