Publisher's Synopsis
Moving from the corridors of the Sorbonne to the cafés of Paris's Left Bank, we discover how the strikingly beautiful and gifted young Simone DeBeauvoir came to fall in love with the squinting, arrogant, hard- drinking Jean-Paul Sartre. We learn about that first summer of 1929, filled with heated debates that went on long into the night, sexual rivalry and betrayal, and the dangerous ideas that led people to experiment with new ways of behaving. We hear how Sartre compromised with the Nazis and fell into a Soviet honey-trap. And, thanks to recently discovered letters written by the avowed feminist DeBeauvoir, Seymour-Jones reveals the darker, more dangerous side to the couple's philosophy of free love, including Simone's lesbianism and her pimping of younger girls for Jean-Paul in order to keep his love. Finally available in the U.S., this is a compelling and fascinating account of what lay behind the legend that this brilliant, tempestuous couple created.
