Face to Face with Henry Miller
The earlier Belmont conversations, published under several national titles.
Read our take
Flash Back
by Henry Miller
At Pacific Palisades, Christian de Bartillat prompts an aging Miller to move backward through Paris, America, friendships, work, and survival.
- 1976
- 166
About Henry Miller
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeFlash Back: Entretiens à Pacific Palisades avec Christian de Bartillat is a French-language retrospective built around encounters with Miller at his California home. Stock and Chêne published it in 1976. De Bartillat combines conversation with an editorial presentation of Miller and passages from his writing. The book is distinct from Georges Belmont’s earlier Paris conversations; a 1990 French reissue belongs to its own publication history.
The story, in more detail
The California setting places an older Miller before an interviewer interested in the life already represented by his books. The published portrait includes de Bartillat’s framing as well as the author’s words.
A 1976 review criticized the interviewer’s prominence and use of previously published passages. Whether or not readers agree with that judgment, it is important to distinguish the book’s editorial construction from a verbatim transcript of spontaneous conversation.
Themes and analysis
The interview and the editor’s presence
Flash Back presents Christian de Bartillat’s encounters with Miller at Pacific Palisades. The writer is looking backward from his California home, but the published object is not simply an unedited transcript. De Bartillat’s framing and the use of passages from Miller’s work help construct the retrospective portrait.
A contemporary review in Rouge, published on November 10, 1976, objected that the interviewer occupied too much space and relied heavily on quotations from existing books. That is one critic’s judgment, not a neutral description of the work’s quality, but it identifies a useful question about its form.
A conversation made into a French book
De Bartillat was also a publisher at Stock. A surviving letter from February 1976 records discussion of possible titles, including Flash-back. The book’s title and framing were thus part of an editorial process as well as a reflection of the conversation’s backward-looking subject.
Stock and Chêne published the volume in 1976. A French reissue appeared under C. de Bartillat in 1990, with different pagination. These are editions within one publication history, not evidence of a new conversation held after Miller’s death.
What retrospective talk can reveal
The interest of this kind of book lies partly in the relation between the aging speaker and the already familiar literary figure. Earlier writing can be quoted back into a present conversation, allowing the author to endorse, modify, or inhabit an established image of himself.
That also calls for caution: material quoted from a novel remains a literary passage, even when it appears within a book of interviews. Flash Back should be read beside, not merged into, Georges Belmont’s earlier conversations. The different interlocutors make different portraits possible.
Why we recommend it
Old age in the room
The California setting keeps memory connected to Miller’s present body, home, and routines.
A distinct interviewer
De Bartillat’s sequence produces a different retrospective emphasis from the Belmont conversations.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Christian de Bartillat
French publisher and interviewer who records Miller’s late recollections at Pacific Palisades.
Timeline
1976
Stock / Chêne publishes the Paris edition of the Pacific Palisades conversations.
Book editions
- Paperback
- Stock / Chêne
- 1976
- 9782234006027
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
On Turning Eighty
A late prose collection confronting age from Miller’s own writing desk.
Read our take
Flash Back: frequently asked questions
What language is Flash Back in?
It was published in French.
Where were the interviews recorded?
At Miller’s home in Pacific Palisades, California.
Is it the same as Face to Face?
No. Flash Back is a later conversation book with Christian de Bartillat.
If you like Henry Miller
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Miller's acknowledged master at making literature out of the gutter. Journey gave him permission; Cancer is what he did with it.
View author
Ezra Pound
Pound read Cancer and sent Miller a famously backhanded postcard. Both believed literature's job was to wake the reader by any means necessary.
View author
Simone de Beauvoir
French writer and philosopher whose novels, memoirs, and social analysis examined freedom, gender, responsibility, aging, and the material conditions that shape a life.
View author
References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Flash Back, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Flash Back
MemoirHenry Miller, 1976Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Flash-Back — contemporary review, November 10, 1976, page 11
WebsiteRouge / Association RADAR archiveUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Flash Back page.
3Christian de Bartillat to Miller, February 18, 1976 — proposed interview titles
WebsiteExpatriate Bookshop of DenmarkUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Flash Back page.
4Flash Back — edition record
Official recordOpen LibraryUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
5The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller
BiographySimon & Schuster, 1991Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to Flash Back.
6Henry Miller: A Life
BiographyW. W. Norton, 1991Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to Flash Back.
7Henry Miller: An Inventory of His Collection
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at AustinUsed forArchival evidence used to document the historical record connected to Flash Back.
i
Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
Explore more resources