She spent months at a time in Switzerland, contending with officialdom (a Swiss specialty), poring through documents, and laboriously taking notes in pencil-no laptops allowed. Wading imperturbably into a world populated by brilliant but contentious theorists, practitioners, institutions, keepers of the flame, she acquired secret sources all over the world.
I watched her immerse herself in the voluminous archives of Carl Jung. Then my cover appeared-with Deirdre’s name misspelled. When she provided a lovely one, my publisher called several times, carefully checking everything from which year Deirdre’s Samuel Beckett biography had received the National Book Award to the proper spelling of both Beckett and De Beauvoir. Mary was a feisty former Village Voice columnist and city editor, a former head of WNYC Radio stations, a longtime ally of Edward Koch, and Deirdre’s best friend.Īt that point, Deirdre was finishing her biography of Anaïs Nin, but since I was using her Simone de Beauvoir biography, I hesitantly asked if she would consider a blurb. Working on a biography of Gloria Steinem, I met Mary Perot Nichols, who had also worked on a book about Steinem. Books brought us together, which seems right.
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