Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Intimate Life of the Nation: Reading The Second Sex in 1949
2. Beauvoir, Kinsey, and Midcentury Sex
3. Readers and Writers
4. The Algerian War and the Scandal of Torture
5. Shame as Political Feeling
6. Second Takes on The Second Sex
7. Couple Troubles
8. Sexual Politics and Feminism
Conclusion

About the Author

Judith G. Coffin is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of The Politics of Women's Work and articles on radio, mass culture, and sexuality and coauthor of four editions of Western Civilizations. Follow her on X @judygcoffin.

Reviews

Coffin opens up a new perspective onto a major writer, and makes a convincing case for her continuing intellectual relevance. (Publisher's Weekly) This beautifully written, frequently moving book is a crucial addition to the scholarship on Simone de Beauvoir. (Kirkus Reviews) [Coffin] writes engagingly about... historic developments while paying strict attention to the vivid immediacy of those letters that range far and wide across the categories of sentiment, education, and motive, revealing personalities that run the gamut from the elegant to the crude, the appreciative to the demanding. (Boston Review) Several years ago, Coffin had the great fortune to be the first researcher to open an uncataloged Beauvoir archive.... No less fortunately, she had the great intelligence and skill to translate these letters into English for us and cast them in a lucid and fascinating account of Beauvoir's relationship to her readers then and since. (Los Angeles Review of Books) Sex, Love, and Letters is a highly engaging book that provides an excellent contribution to the field of Beauvoir scholarship. Coffin provides readers with an exceptionally rich picture of the cultural landscape of France and beyond in the decades after World War II, which is indispensable for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Beauvoir's work. (Simone de Beauvoir Studies) The title of Judith Coffin's book evokes, for those of us old enough to remember it, Steven Soderbergh's 1989 hit movie, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, whose main argument, according to the late and great Roger Ebert, was that 'conversation is better than sex—more intimate, more voluptuous.' (H-France Review)