Love in America

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Julian Green was the first American to be elected to the Academie Francaise. This third volume of his memoirs encompasses his 20th year, when he traveled to the U.S. for the first time and fell passionately in love with a young man. Green, born in Paris to American parents, was sent by his father to complete his education at the University of Virginia, where he experienced feelings of intense isolation because he was a Roman Catholic in the Protestant South and alone (so he believed) in his sexual feelings for other male students. Torn between desire and the dictates of his religion, Green tormented himself with guilt and vowed to become a priest. His misery was relieved by visits to his mother's relations, among whom he came to identify with his late mother's Confederate sympathies. Before his return to Paris, Green overcame his scruples enough to forge a platonic relationship with a student named Mark.