And the Show Went on Lib/E: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris

In the weeks after the Germans captured Paris, theaters, opera houses, and nightclubs reopened to occupiers and French citizens alike, and they remained open for the duration of the war. Alan Riding introduces a pageant of twentieth-century artists who lived and worked under the Nazis and explores the decisions each made about whether to stay or flee, collaborate or resist. We see Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf singing before French and German audiences; Picasso painting and occasionally selling his work from his Left Bank apartment; and Marcel Carné and Henri-Georges Clouzot, among others, directing movies in Paris studios (more than two hundred were produced during this time). We see that pro-Fascist writers such as Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Robert Brasillach flourished, but also that Camus's The Stranger was published and Sartre's play No Exit was first performed--ten days before the Normandy landings. Based on exhaustive research and extensive interviews, And the Show Went On sheds a clarifying light on a protean and problematic era in twentieth-century European cultural history.

About the Author :
Alan Riding is a Brazilian-born Briton who studied economics and law before becoming a journalist and writer. He has worked for Reuters, the Financial Times, the Economist, and the New York Times, reporting from the United Nations in New York, Latin America, and Western Europe. During the final twelve years before he retired from journalism in 2007, he was the European cultural correspondent for the New York Times, based in Paris. Alan is the author of the bestselling book Distant Neighbors and coauthor of Essential Shakespeare Handbook and Opera. He lives in Paris with his wife, Marlise Simons, a writer for the Times. Stephen Hoye is an Audie Award and Earphones Award winner for the Best Voice in Biography and History. His audiobook career includes reading dozens of audiobooks, including James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia, Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip, and Ben Bova's The Aftermath. Hoye trained at Boston University and The Guildhall in London. Hoye has worked as an actor for more than 30 years, with roles in films such as The Delivery, Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Little Shop of Horrors, and Spies Like Us. On television, he's been seen in The Return of Shelley, Drop the Dead Donkey, and Crossroads. He's also appeared on stage in Henry V and Love's Labours Lost, both at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, London. Stephen Hoye is an Audie Award and Earphones Award winner for the Best Voice in Biography and History. His audiobook career includes reading dozens of audiobooks, including James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia, Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip, and Ben Bova's The Aftermath. Hoye trained at Boston University and The Guildhall in London. Hoye has worked as an actor for more than 30 years, with roles in films such as The Delivery, Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Little Shop of Horrors, and Spies Like Us. On television, he's been seen in The Return of Shelley, Drop the Dead Donkey, and Crossroads. He's also appeared on stage in Henry V and Love's Labours Lost, both at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, London.

Review :
A stark account of how we act when evil enters our door.-- "Kirkus"