Creating Colette: Vol. 2, from Baroness to Woman of Letters 1912-1954

Although it made her a baroness, Colette's second marriage (to Henry de Jouvenel, the vain, flashy politician and editor of Le Matin) in 1912 changed little of her androgynous lifestyle: she continued to have lovers of both sexes, including the silent-film star Musidora and her new stepson, Bertrand, whom she initiated at 16. Until then she was ""Colette Willy,"" former wife of the exploitative journalist Henry Gauthier-Villars, who wrote under the name ""Willy"" and published much of his wife's early fiction as his own. Colette could neither type nor dictate, yet she turned out reams of fiction and reviews between the wars. Her Claudine novels in the first years of the century (originally claimed by Willy) made her famous; Ch ri in 1920 was an instant classic; in 1944, the bestselling Gigi proved that her advancing years--she was then 71--had not slowed her down. Severe arthritis eventually left her bound to a wheelchair, but she was cared for by the devoted and once-debonair Maurice Goudeket, 16 years her junior, who began courting her when she was 51 and married her when she was 62. The most dramatic pages here recount the Nazi occupation of France, when the Jewish Goudeket was rounded up. Released through her collaborator literary friends, he hid nightly; one of her neighbors suggested that he was safest in his wife's bed--""they would never look for him there."" With this volume, coauthors Francis and Gontier (Charmed World) conclude a vibrant, revealing biography of a writer who rose above her naughty reputation to become a memorable chronicler of her bohemian life and times. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Oct.)