The Inevitable Perfidy

Set in Paris in 1928 The Inevitable Perfidy is a novel about the social volcano of Paris and how a young man from Amherst, Massachusetts nearly gets lost in the eruption of indiscretion, dishonesty, love, sex, and literature. Franklin is a blond, blue-eyed gay New Englander who takes a sabbatical and finds himself living in Paris of the jazz age. He meets everyone from F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, King Vidor, James Joyce, Archibald MacLeish, Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, and many others. At the heart of the novel is strait-laced Franklin's astonishing love triangle, in which he learns the obvious truth that sex is not love and, as Gertrude Stein says, "It's not how you write it. It's how you remember it." Josephine Baker lurks on the periphery of the novel, as she becomes friendly with one of Franklin's lovers, the banker Xavier, and offers sage advice.