In the spring of 1946, the black American novelist, Richard Wright presented himself at the Rue de Fleurus apartment of Gertrude Stein, a meeting which symbolized the passing of one generation of writers in Paris and the birth of another. This account starts with that meeting and ends with the death - probably suspicious - of Wright, 14 years later. The intervening years yield a multitude of strange tales: links between writers and the CIA; the emergence of the shadowy Boris Vian; the resurrection of Samuel Beckett by a small Left Bank magazine edited by Scottish writer Alexander Trocchi; Maurice Girodias and the Olympia Press; the real Story of O; and what happened when the Beat Generation - the White Negroes - came to Paris, to find themselves sharing cafe tables with James Baldwin and Chester Himes. Above all, the author celebrates the prevailing spirit of freedom in those years, and the art it fostered.