Natalie, Book 2: Dirt

Paris has a reputation for corruption. Natalie Clifford Barney intends to investigate.

Arriving in France with her mother, Alice, and her sister, Laura, Natalie enters a city where money opens doors, beauty invites speculation, and women have invented ingenious ways to survive the rules men make for them.

In Neuilly, Eva Palmer lives close enough to remain part of Natalie’s daily life. Beyond their quiet neighborhood lies another Paris, one of theaters, private apartments, literary circles, and women whose lives are considerably more interesting than their reputations.

Among them is Liane de Pougy.

A celebrated courtesan, Liane understands the uses of beauty, the value of desire, and the difference between being wanted and being possessed. Natalie, who has never believed love should be governed by convention, finds herself drawn toward a woman who knows exactly what the world is willing to pay for intimacy.

Paris is delighted to watch.

There are pleasures to being notorious. There are also people who make their living from other women's secrets.

Natalie has come to Paris to live freely. She is about to discover how many people consider a woman's freedom their personal business.

Dirt is a novel of appetite, privilege, scandal, and the intoxicating freedom of refusing to be respectable.