Epilogue: The Party Report
October, 2025
BY CHLOÉ CALONEC
“Guess who I am seated across from,” I text my friend, who looks alarmingly like Ernest Hemingway: “A third-generation Hemingway and the fourth generation owner of Harry’s Bar (5 rue Daunou, Paris).”
“Even more,” I add, “Guess where? In the Piano bar, in the basement, on the very same banquette where you took me for my first ever martini in the autumn of my twentieth.
Truth be told, there are lots of men looking like you in this room (weathered faces, great hair), and it is hard to know whether to speak French or English: this is, I realize, the turf of the American expat. You would hate this (sober), but also absolutely love this (drunk).”
Sharp-suited men stand and high-waisted women sit, all gesturing and shouting to converse over the uproar of a small, stuffy room packed with increasingly tipsy people.
Sharp-suited men stand and high-waisted women sit, all gesturing and shouting to converse over the uproar of a small, stuffy room packed with increasingly tipsy people. It appears everyone here knows each other, and it has to be said: there is a consistent and above-average sense of style going on down here, in a 1950s way. People stand straight. There are hats, and braces, and houndstooth, in all the appropriate autumnal shades.
One hears “Oh my God”s coming left, right, and center, understandably and increasingly so, as we are served limitless Boulevardier cocktails, avec or sans ice, mixed at the small bar by Patrick Dooley, a bartender at Harry’s for the past four years.
Patrick is returning to Paris after a few months of wandering about, and tonight, although in his whites and behind the bar, he is launching in this very basement a magazine named The Boulevardier. This is, in fact, more of a relaunch, as The Boulevardier existed about a hundred years ago. The original Editor, Erskine Gwynne, was a wealthy young American who flitted off to Paris to start a literary magazine in 1927, giving a tribune to the likes of Hemingway, Joyce, Wolfe, and others.
Today, Patrick and his co-conspirators are re-editing the magazine: with essays, art, cocktail writing, and photography, it brings back much of its original spirit, and almost a century later, the magazine that prompted the creation of the famous cocktail. For this endeavour, The Boulevardier team has spent many a studious afternoon at the Bibliothèque François Mitterand looking through the archives to uncover the original publication, following the miraculous discovery of its traces in the Harry’s Bar basement, between what I imagine to be dusty boxes of the finest Cognac and dated yet delightful glassware.
Upon arrival, I am determined to socialize—but I need a drink. I wouldn’t want to wonder too much about names, or shoes, or whether I should have worn that hat or not. I am promptly poured one (pre-mixed, on ice) and take cover at the back of the room, from where I start lurking. I am observing a tall, slender older guy who looks like a slender, older version of my ex-husband. A bald man stands in front of me, facing the room, wearing a large black scarf as a sort of cape. I pull up on my phone a strangely similar picture I took of a man at Christmas mass in Venice two years ago.
I fret. I retreat for a cigarette and a phone call.
Paige Miller, the editor, who has been overly welcoming to me (I was taking notes and suspect she might have figured out my spying endeavours), finds me upstairs and sneaks me a hot dog. “Un chien chaud s’il vous plaît,” she asks ever-charmingly of the upstairs bartender.
After wolfing down said hot dog under the tender gaze of a complete stranger, I slide back downstairs. Events keep unfolding. There is flirting, reunions, coats, and scarves piled high in corners, excitement, and good shoes. I sip on a new drink (pre-mixed, no ice. Stronger. I’m not here to get a haircut.)
Then, there is a talk, and of the right length: Hemingway (jr), charming, deadpan, whips the stuffy air of the room into a creamy, light, sweet atmosphere: that of reunions and of beginnings. There are thanks and talks of spirit. Dooley stares at the floor as he finishes talking. Hard to tell if he’s about to cry or jump on the bar, although I imagine both would convey the same sentiment. Can these people get any more charming?
We raise our glasses after his conclusion: “May our stories travel twice as far as we do.”
We raise our glasses after his conclusion: “May our stories travel twice as far as we do.” I hope they do, because on the other hand, I am starting to feel comfortable in this burrow. I am finally seated and just starting to socialize when the bell rings at 10 PM, and even though I try to linger, I am promptly and politely pointed towards the upstairs: the party finishes on time. I will learn later that 210 drinks were served for about 90 guests in three hours. It’s always good to know the numbers.
Instead of lingering some more until I find another conversation partner, I decide on the old Irish exit: I wrap myself in a scarf and slice my way towards the door. No goodbye to all that, I’ll be back at Harry’s in no time—and for The Boulevardier too.