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Illustrated portrait of Alfred Perlès

A character in Aller Retour New York

Alfred Perlès

The addressee — Miller's closest Paris friend and Clichy flatmate, to whom the entire book is written. New Directions calls it Miller's longest and best letter.

Alfred Perlès in the atlas — books, places, and life

The book

Cover of Aller Retour New York by Henry Miller
Aller Retour New YorkHenry Miller, 1935

One long letter to Alfred Perlès — Miller sails to New York in 1935, hates it magnificently, and sails back. A round trip, as the title says.

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At a glance

In the book
The friend the whole letter is written to; he never speaks and appears in no scene
What Miller calls him
Fred, Joey, and once "brother Fredl"; the surname appears only on the title page
How the title page describes him
A distinguished Viennese French writer, and the previous holder of the record for letter writing
Where he is
Paris, throughout, while Miller is in New York and then on the boat back
What he is asked for
The bicycle and the phonograph, stockings for a woman called Maggy, a bottle of wine, and a meal at the dock
The real person
Alfred Perlès · 1897–1990 · Vienna

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Alfred Perlès was an Austrian writer, born in Vienna in 1897, and by the early 1930s he was the American novelist Henry Miller's closest friend in Paris. Miller had left New York for Paris in 1930. In 1935 he sailed back to New York for a visit, and he wrote the whole trip down as one long letter to Perlès, who stayed behind in France. That letter is this book. Every page of it is addressed to him.

Miller almost never writes his surname. In the letter he is Fred at the opening and the close, and Joey for most of what comes between. Joey is the one to watch: the two men used it for each other, so it sometimes means Miller himself. Perlès explained the habit in his own memoir of the friendship, My Friend Henry Miller (1955): "Henry thought it simplified matters and, moreover, taught one to be humble."

Perlès never speaks here. He is not described physically, he appears in no scene, and he is given no dialogue. What the book hands him instead is a running stream of instructions and expectations — have the bicycle ready, have a meal waiting, remind me later about the bootblack whose business was so bad that he was shining his own shoes. The portrait comes out of what one friend assumes he can ask of another.

The identification is straightforward: the book is nonfiction and names him on its title page. This profile is drawn from the Hesperus Press edition of 2007, read in the Internet Archive's scan. That edition prints Aller Retour New York across pages 11 to 93 and then adds a separate piece from 1939, Via Dieppe–Newhaven, in which Alfred Perlès does appear as a character in scenes. Nothing from that second piece is used here.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • The man the letter is written toThe book opens with a salutation, "Dear Fred," and does not change address again. It closes by asking him what he made of it. "Well, Fred, how was that?" Miller then says he is going to stop now.
  • The letter-writing recordMiller's subtitle for the 1935 edition describes him as a distinguished Viennese French writer who, until then, had held the record for letter writing. Miller treats that record as a competition. Two thirds of the way through he interrupts himself: "A few more pages, Joey, and I will be breaking my own record!"
  • Joey, Fred, and brother FredlThe surname appears once in the whole volume, on the title page. Inside the letter he is Fred at the start and finish, Joey for most of the middle, and on page 52 "brother Fredl", a German diminutive for a friend from Vienna.
  • The bicycle and the phonographOn the first page Miller sends him a list of things to see to before the boat gets in. He will bring stockings for a woman called Maggy, whom the book never identifies. In return: "Make sure my bike is there. I am going to use it!" And then, because he is bringing American jazz records home with him, "And where is my phono?" Perlès is the one holding Miller's belongings in Paris while he is away.
  • The meal he is expected to have readyTwice Miller tells him what he wants to eat when he lands. First, on page 36, that he hopes there will be a good spread waiting. Two pages later he gets specific: "Throw me a few meals now!" and "And put a little gravy on the potatoes." He asks for Kartoffelklösse, a German potato dumpling, wonders in brackets whether he has spelled it right this time, and adds, "Never mind the umlauts — they will come later."
  • The question you are not supposed to ask himThe only thing the book says about his temperament arrives in a passage about Paris street names. Miller admits he never found out who or what Choiseul was: "Choiseul — it reminds me never to ask Fred a question which demands a precise answer." Then the reason: "It annoys him."
  • The letters they wrote to women togetherHalfway through, Miller gets a letter from an old flame he calls Juliet, asking why he insists on living in Paris, and he answers her at length inside the letter to Perlès. Then he turns back to his friend: "Did you like that, Joey?" The follow-up makes it clear this was a shared pastime: "Maybe you can think up some more cunts we can write to."
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