A Taste for Intrigue: The Multiple Lives of Fran%C3%A7ois Mitterrand

Celebrated biographer Short (Mao: A Life) again proves himself an adept storyteller in this look at France's magnetic former president Mitterrand, bringing him back to life with a deeply intimate and intriguing history. Short leaves no cycle of the president's life uncovered, with his childhood and upbringing foreshadowing his post-war years as a Socialist Party activist and unlikely rise to the presidency in 1981. Brought up in a Catholic, conservative environment, Mitterrand's ideals were shattered during his time as a WWII soldier and later a prisoner of war. No longer able to fully defend the lifestyle he had known, he began his political career careening through the ranks of the Socialist party, secretly battling his family's ideology with a politics he grew to defend and represent. However, Mitterrand indeed lived multiple lives, and his indecisiveness was a constant factor throughout. Even in his personal life the president maintained two separate and happy relationships: one with his lifelong partner and wife, Danielle, and another with his mistress, Anne. Both supporters and opponents admitted to Mitterrand's political brilliance as well as his considerable charm, and Short's well-constructed work makes both abundantly clear. Agent: Veronique Baxter, David Higham (U.K.). (Apr.)