Kafka Was the Rage

Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir is a 1993 memoir by American writer, editor, and literary critic Anatole Broyard. Published posthumously, it recounts Broyard’s life in late 1940s Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in the wake of World War II. Broyard recounts a widespread resurgence of interest in intellectual traditions, new movements in art and culture, and more liberal norms in areas of sexuality, multiculturalism, and free expression. During this time, Broyard, a member of New York’s sprawling bohemian scene, participated in the city’s avant-garde tradition at the New School. In his memoir, he writes with nostalgia about this period of hope and creative promise for America’s postwar era, while acknowledging that some of its optimism was misplaced.

Broyard’s memoir takes its readers on a journey to Greenwich Village, circa 1946. Back then, the neighborhood was full of artists and intellectuals. Broyard was twenty-three, and recently back from serving in World War II. Though he had spent his early childhood in New Orleans, his family moved to Brooklyn during grade school. For him, this time was filled with a positive restlessness, and he believed that New York presented endless opportunities for creative growth. During that decade, New York evoked comparisons to Paris, another global intellectual and creative hub.

As a young adult newly freed from the horrors and atrocities of the war, Broyard’s strong affinities to art and culture exceeded his crude knowledge and minimal formal training. His first connection in the scene was Sheri Donatti, an avant-garde artist whom he met while looking for an apartment in the Village. Sheri owned an extra apartment in her building and rented it out to Broyard. Before moving in, Broyard neglected to ask any details about the living situation; he found the apartment in disarray, cluttered with Sheri’s possessions. The kitchen was almost fully occupied by a large printing press she used for making art. Most shocking was that Sheri had not told him they would be sharing the same bedroom—the plan was only evident once she had hung her clothes in his closet. She proceeded to seduce him over the coming months, acting out Broyard’s first experience with the radical sexual openness of the postwar era.



Broyard returned Sheri’s affection, though he found her erratic, intellectually obstinate, and sometimes domineering. This resulted in a complex, on-again, off-again relationship. Broyard never felt that Sheri was entirely interested in him; her criteria for a sexual partner were opaque and seemingly in constant flux. The couple never grew very intimate despite Sheri’s hopes that they would. Eventually, Broyard accepted that Sheri was not the partner he needed. He moved on, and she continued to try to draw him back to her. Broyard reflects that their relationship was only ever superficial, given the illusion of depth by the radical, exciting, and creative climate they lived in.

Even though Broyard moved on from Sheri, he was never able to move on from Greenwich Village. He desperately sought to belong in its arts scene. Moving out of Sheri’s gave him an opportunity to focus his energies on this goal. He became a successful writer, propelled upwards in the literary world by the connections he made in New York. He befriended many famous writers and grew from their expertise and community. At the end of his memoir, Broyard outlines the strategy he developed for making one’s way in an elite world. While it is important to hold fast to one’s dreams and often to work relentlessly, an equally important ingredient is to remain rooted in one’s reality, including one’s inherited burdens and abilities. Broyard credits his strong sense of self with providing the tools and motivation necessary to move beyond the superficiality of the postwar era to explore its profound depths.