Noon in Paris, Eight in Chicago

Douglas Cowie

May 2016 · Myriad Editions

About this ebook

Sharp and intimate, Douglas Cowie's reimagining of the turbulent love affair between Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren asks what it means to love and be loved by the right person at the wrong time. Chicago, 1947: on a freezing February night, France's feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir calls up radical resident novelist Nelson Algren, asking him to show her around. After a whirlwind tour of dive bars, cabarets and the police lockup, the pair return to his apartment on Wabansia Avenue. Here, a passion is sparked that will last for the next two decades. Their relationship intensifies during intoxicating months spent together in Paris and Chicago. But in between are long, anguished periods apart filled with competing desires lovers old and new, writing, politi, gambling which ultimately expose the fragility of their unconventional marriage and put their devotion to the test.

About the author

Douglas Cowie is originally from Chicago and has lived in England and Berlin since 1999. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. His first novel, Owen Noone and the Marauder, was published in the UK and the US in 2005. Most recently he has published two linked novellas, Sing for Life: Tin Pan Alley and Sing for Life: Away, You Rolling River in the US.