Lesser Known Contemporaries - Recommendations?

Do you know that passage in A Moveable Feast where Fitzgerald gives Hemingway "a sort of oral Ph.D. thesis on Michael Arlen" as they're driving from Lyon to Paris in Scott's ruined Renault? I've always read that chapter (a) rather wistfully (oh, to have been a fly on the windscreen listening to that thesis), and (b) wondering what other writers the key Lost Generation figures were reading during their time in Paris?

Not the big hitters, mind you (e.g., Hemingway tucking into Tolstoy and Dostoevsky at Shakespeare and Co.), nor the contemporaries who became literary icons (e.g., Stein, Joyce, Pound...). No, I'm thinking about those contemporaries who have been somewhat forgotten by history -- people like Arlen. Perhaps he's been overlooked for good reason, but Fitzgerald liked him, and I'd like to find out why.

Here are some works I've come up with, just off the top of my head:
The Green Hat by Michael Arlen
The Left Bank by Jean Rhys
The Salamander by Owen Johnson

If anyone has an obscure Lost Generation favourite or any other recommendations, I'd love to gather them and compose a reading list. Thanks!

Just off the top of my head, I could certainly recommend Nathan Asch's "Love in Chartres." Anyone else?

How about John Glassco's "Memoirs of Montparnasse", an often overlooked one?
I love this idea-thanks ,mountebank!

How about That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan.

Being geniuses together by Kay Boyle and Robert McAlmon

Sorry, all, I assumed we were talking about "lost generation" fiction, the novels written by the writers we have forgotten. If we mean "lost generation" autobiography -- as the examples other people have given above -- there are many excellent examples. Try Harold Stearns ("The Street I Know"), Bravig Imbs ("Confessions of Another Young Man"), Samuel Putnam ("Paris Was Our Mistress"), or Harold Loeb's ("The Way It Was"). Everyone should read Stearns. In putting together my book, I found more than 30 autobiographies by folks who had some legitimate claim to have been writers of note.

Great idea! I second Memoirs of Montparnasse by John Glassco, Being Geniuses Together by Robert McAlmon, and The Left Bank by Jean Rhys and would add her autobiography Smile Please as well.
I would also add:
The Left Bank by Elmer Rice
Back to Montparnasse by Sisley Huddleston
Djuna Barnes

These suggestions are so inspiring. Thank you so much for replying, everyone!

Initially, I was indeed thinking fiction, just as assiniboia mentioned. However, there's likely no better place to find reference to the more obscure authors than these autobiographies. It looks like two reading lists are now in order!

...by the by, has anyone come across Glenway Wescott in their travels? He seems to fit the bill perfectly in terms of time/place/obscurity.

There was a good biography of Wescott published in the last couple of years. Back to fiction, "This Way Up," a novel from Solita Solano, Janet Flanner's partner, is another nice title. Harold Loeb's "The Professors Like Vodka" and Bravig Imbs' "The Professor's Wife" are also fun. We should have a contest for the most obscure!

How about Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins -another biography. I read it a long time ago.

How about Booth Tarkington?

I used to despair that I'd never have enough to read about the "LG", but now I despair that I'll never get all these wonderful suggestions read! Keep 'em coming, please.

I completely agree, Passy!

From That Summer in Paris I've gleaned the following:

Raymond Knister (a fellow Canadian; he and Callaghan met up in Toronto before the latter left for Paris; Morley tried to get Hemingway interested in Knister's imagist poetry, to no avail)

Liam O'Flaherty (Callaghan liked The Informer "very much", but Hemingway said O'Flaherty was "thinking too much" with Mr. Gilhooley)

Likewise, from A Moveable Feast:

Marie Belloc Lowndes: Hemingway said "I had never heard of her, and Miss Stein loaned me The Lodger, that marvelous story of Jack the Ripper and another about murder at a place outside place outside Paris that could only be Enghien les Bains." He goes on to say that "they were perfect for reading after you had worked and I read all the Mrs. Belloc Lowndes that there was," but "none were as good as those first two".

Hemingway also dedicates an entire chapter to an afternoon drinking with Evan Shipman at the Closerie de Lilas. Hem calls him a "fine poet" - has anyone read him?

I have just begun Craig Monk's "Writing the Lost Generation" and have already added considerably to my Amazon "wish list". Craig opens wide a treasure chest of heretofore (to me, at least) unknown books & references, along with those familiar to us all. His quotes make it easy to understand what made these "LG" people tick.

Well, to be fair, I had never heard of Time Was Soft There until I looked at your library. I just recently returned from a visit to Shakespeare and Company, and so it is an interesting time for me to be reading that one!