Waverley Root

In Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller introduces a character named Peckover who works with him at the Paris Edition of the Chicago Tribune. Peckover is presented as a proofreader and an Englishman, but the model for this character was actually a sportswriter from San Francisco named Madison Kirby.

The Chicago Tribune staff and taxi drivers were joined at Gillotte’s by other denizens of the Paris nightlife, notably the local prostitutes and their pimps. It was just the sort of setting, bringing together the Paris literati with the working class and demi-mondaine, all mixed with copious quantities of food and wine, at which Miller was in his element.

Miller’s ironic position as a proofreader of stock market quotations during the midst of The Great Depression afforded him a unique perspective. From his perch at the proofreaders desk he surveyed the collapsing world economy with the sense of detached amusement that permeates Tropic of Cancer...