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.