I would like to particularly thank Bill Swainson for his unwavering support and heartwarming erudition; Simon Trewin, a wonderful born trouper; Dorian Karchmar for her laser-sharp eye and attention to details; Gillian Blake, favorite publisher grande dame; Caroline Zancan, editor supremo alongside Kerry Cullen; and Michael Fishwick at Bloomsbury for his shrewd comments.
I would also like to thank my first reader, Linden Lawson, whose enthusiasm proved a great support, and Anna Hervé, a most astute poisson pilote and adviser.
In the course of researching this book, I think I fell in love with both writer Irwin Shaw and the Louvre’s savior Jacques Jaujard, I sympathized with Janet Flanner’s quest for a third sex, smiled at Saul Bellow’s superiority complex, and was awed by Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre’s brazen intelligence. I didn’t drink the way they used to on the Left Bank in postwar Paris, nor did I take any drugs, but sometimes I wish I had.
And to Nicole Parrot, the great inspiration behind this book, I’d like to say: “We will always have Paris.”