For more than a century, pilgrims from all over the world seeking romance and passion have made their way to the City of Light. The seductive lure of Paris has long been irresistible to lovers, artists, epicureans, and connoisseurs of the good life. Globe-trotting film critic and writer John Baxter heard her siren song and was bewitched. Now he offers readers a witty, audacious, scandalous behind-the-scenes excursion into the colorful all-night show that is Paris -- interweaving his own experience of falling in love, with a delightfully salacious tour of the sultry Parisian corners most guidebooks ignore: from the literary cafés of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and de Beauvoir to the brothels where Dietrich and Duke Ellington held court, where Salvador Dali sated his fantasies, and Edward VII kept a sumptuous champagne bath for his favorite girls.

本書は、映画批評家ジョン・バクスターが自らの恋路と、パリが抱く芳醇な闇を交錯させた究極の人間讃歌です。文豪たちの足跡から、芸術家が耽溺した秘められた社交場まで、彼が描き出すのは教科書的な歴史ではなく、血の通ったエロティシズムと美学が渦巻く迷宮です。 映画的視点で切り取られた情景描写は瑞々しく、読者は活字を通してパリの香気を肌で感じるでしょう。華やかな都の裏側に潜む、猥雑で気高い真実をユーモアたっぷりに暴き出す筆致は、知的冒険心を刺激して止みません。先人たちの魂の残滓を辿る旅は、あなたの美意識を根底から揺さぶるはずです。