' If Americans were hysterical and pragmatic, the French were fatalistic, depressed but determined to keep the party going, " White writes in "The FarewellSymphony.
He liked Paris so much that he stayed there -- "with its drizzle, as cool, grey and luxurious as chinchilla, " he writes in the autobiographical novel "The FarewellSymphony" -- beyond the year that he had planned.