Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Me - a Memoir

Summary of Parisian Lives

1. 1

   A Charlatan's Confession and a Biographer's Baptism

   

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   "So you are the one who is going to reveal me for the charlatan that I am." These startling words greeted a young American scholar in a shabby Parisian hotel room in 1971. Picture Samuel Beckett-hawklike visage, tuft of white hair, impaired vision forcing him to sit so close their knees touched at a tiny table. Before departing, he delivered a warning that would prove chillingly accurate: "My friends and family will assist you and my enemies will find you soon enough." This wasn't the beginning most biographers dream of, but it launched Deirdre Bair into an extraordinary journey through the labyrinth of literary biography. Her memoir "Parisian Lives" chronicles the fascinating, often bizarre experiences of capturing two literary titans on the page-Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir. What emerges isn't just a behind-the-scenes look at famous lives, but a masterclass in persistence, integrity, and the strange alchemy of transforming living, breathing complexity into definitive narrative. The book reveals something rarely discussed: biography isn't detective work or journalism-it's a high-wire act performed while your subjects, their friends, and the entire academic establishment watch, critique, and sometimes sabotage your every move.

2. 2

   The Accidental Biographer Who Defied the Odds

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   How does a thirty-year-old married mother of two become the biographer of one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic writers? Through audacity, practicality, and luck. Bair left newspaper journalism for graduate school in 1969, an anomaly in New Haven where working mothers pursuing PhDs were virtually unheard of. When advisors warned that scholarship committees would reject a "mature woman" with children, she discovered the Danforth Graduate Fellowships - a program designed to increase female representation in academia. Initially drawn to medieval studies, Bair faced reality: her dissertation on Saint Bernard's Latin sermons would take decades. She shuffled note cards with favorite authors' names and selected Beckett by alphabetical chance. Her advisor warned that pursuing biography would be "academic suicide" during the heyday of New Criticism, when studying an author's life was considered irrelevant. Beckett replied within a week - though he dismissed his life as "dull and without interest," he extended a stunning invitation: "If you come to Paris I will see you." With travel expenses covered and a literary agent offering representation, her biography career began with astonishing ease. The real challenges lay ahead.

3. 3

   Navigating the Labyrinth of Beckett's Compartmentalized World

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   Research meant navigating complex personalities and hidden agendas. Jerome Lindon, Beckett's publisher, initially spent hours sharing correspondence and photos, then abruptly refused access to his "too precious" clippings collection, forcing weeks of archival work. Beckett compartmentalized relationships meticulously-many friends didn't know each other, and all expected Bair to relay gossip, a role she refused. Self-proclaimed "friends of Sam" offered booze-soaked stories that collapsed under scrutiny. Playwright Israel Horovitz ceremoniously presented typed questions and answers, insisting she "reproduce this book exactly" as "the authentic record of his greatest friendship with another great playwright." She endured exhausting Dublin bar evenings, buying drinks for characters claiming stories about "Sam's escapades" while fending off wandering hands. The unwanted sexual advances were constant-traveling married mothers were incomprehensible to many men she interviewed. Yet some encounters proved genuinely illuminating. Actor Jack MacGowran described Beckett as retiring yet possessing "a ruthless desire for truth at any cost," for whom writing was "an agony" but necessary to "show things as they are." Most notably, MacGowran revealed that Beckett claimed "total womb recall"-the ability to remember being in the womb and his birth, a detail crucial to understanding his work's preoccupation with existence and consciousness.

4. Chapter 4

   The McGreevy Letters and a Biographer's Only Dishonest Act

   For three years, Bair courted Thomas McGreevy's nieces over lunches and teas in Dublin, seeking access to his correspondence with Beckett. Each deferral earned them the nickname "The Godot Sisters." In 1974, one niece relented. In shoeboxes stored in an unheated closet, Bair discovered devastating truth-not benign maternal support, but violent reality. Beckett had confided only in McGreevy about his hatred for his mother and his fear their toxic relationship would end in destruction. With limited time, Bair made her only dishonest professional decision-secretly taking handfuls of letters to her hotel each night to transcribe, returning them the next day. She grew increasingly ill while working frantically, guilt-ridden over deceiving the kind nieces. Her publisher's lawyers delivered crushing news: she couldn't use any information without corroboration, and Beckett's medical history was off-limits. After initial despair, she decided to write the book exactly as she envisioned. Later, Beckett asked the nieces to destroy the letters. Her transcriptions became the only surviving record.

   Chapter 5

   Academic Hostility and Publishing Perils

   As her Beckett biography neared completion, Bair faced brutal academic hostility. At the Modern Language Association meeting, colleagues openly mocked her. Dougald McMillan accused her of "messing up the entire Beckett industry." Calvin Israel made inappropriate insinuations about how she got Beckett to "open up." Professor Fred Robinson whispered, "So you're the little girl who stuck her hand in the cookie jar and ran away with all the goodies." Her publishing journey proved equally brutal. In January 1976, Harper & Row deemed her manuscript "unpublishable" - she'd have to repay her advance. Sinking into depression, struggling with headaches from a car accident, overwhelmed by scholarship and motherhood, she wrote: "I don't want to be the wonder woman who cooks, bakes, decorates, manages, copes, etc. I want to be a scholar and a writer, too." When Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich finally accepted the book, their lawyers demanded Beckett's written permission for every quotation. She sent him twenty-three single-spaced pages. Beckett replied warmly, initialing every quotation except one poem from age twelve, which he said "shows better your diligence as a researcher than my development as a writer." His generosity stood in stark contrast to the academic cruelty she'd endured.

   Chapter 6

   From Beckett to Beauvoir: An Unlikely Second Act

   After publication, Bair swore off biography. At a Boston lunch, she declared she'd only write about "a woman who made a success of every aspect of her life-professional respect and a happy personal life. And since I cannot think of a single woman who had both, I guess I will never write another biography." Her editor suggested Simone de Beauvoir-"the only modern woman who made a success of everything." Despite her agent dismissing Beauvoir as "an over-the-hill French feminist," Bair persisted. In September 1981, she sent Beauvoir the French translation of her Beckett biography. Beauvoir's swift reply was encouraging-she'd already read it and was impressed that "an American" had captured "the French writer." In January 1982, Bair found Beauvoir refreshingly direct. At their first meeting, Beauvoir thanked her: "Women come from all over the world to write about me, but all they want to write about is The Second Sex." Pounding her fist, she added, "I wrote so much else-philosophy, politics, fiction, autobiography. You are the only one who wants to write about everything." Their interviews became ritual: formal sessions followed by whiskey and decompression. Unlike Beckett, Beauvoir moved toward friendship, inviting Bair to parties and openings. Yet interviews revealed contradictions-while Beauvoir wrote of her "perfect" compact with Sartre, friends described her sometimes leaving their table to sob alone over wine before returning composed.

   Chapter 7

   The Art and Anguish of Capturing Literary Giants

   When Simone de Beauvoir died on April 14, 1986, Bair retreated to her office and wrote: "I don't think I realized how much I liked her until now that she's gone. No - I didn't realize until now that I more than liked her: I respected her, sure; but I think I loved her, too." The funeral drew thousands - mothers with strollers, African women declaring themselves "daughters of Simone de Beauvoir," academics from the 1968 protests. Even a taxi driver abandoned his cab to join. Bair faced rewriting her nearly-finished biography, transforming a living document into a definitive conclusion. Throughout her career, she encountered gendered dynamics: audiences accepted men writing about women but questioned women writing about men. After an emotionally charged session with Beauvoir, she spotted Beckett at the Dome. During their walk, she shared the indignities she'd suffered since publishing his biography - the academic criticism, personal attacks, questioning of her methods. Beckett called it "unfortunate" before offering advice she's followed since: "You must never explain. You must never complain." It was the last time she saw him.

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