Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre - those passionate, free-thinking Existentialist philosopher-writers - had a committed but notoriously open union that generated no end of controversy. Theirs is a great story - and a great story is precisely what they most wanted their lives to be.

"An elegant, concise, gossipy account... heartbreaking and compelling" * Financial Times *"Refreshingly unpretentious. It may be the book that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir wished to be written about their shared life" * Sunday Times *"Rowley tells [the story] with compelling vigour... What is wonderful about Rowley's book, aside from its readability, is that she catches the intellectual excitement as well, the intimacy of thought" -- Brian Morton * Sunday Herald *"[Rowley] manages to recapture the charm and the brilliance of the relationship in its early stages, which makes her story all the more poignant and depressing" * Scotsman *"Marvellous ... A born storyteller" -- Serena Davies * Telegraph *

A highly readable dual biography, this is the first book to concentrate exclusively on the relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and draws on revelatory letters and diaries previously unseen, as well as on the testimony of people who have not wanted to give interviews before.