Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Zimberg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, my guest is Francine Prose.

Her new book has the extraordinary title, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris, 1932.

So let's begin immediately and place this.

The chameleon club in real life was called what?

The Monaco, the Monaco.

And that was in Paris in 1932,

and the extraordinary Hungarian photographer Brassai

took a picture.

What was it of?

The picture was of two women

sitting at a little table in the bar and the club, and one of the women is wearing a spangly evening gown, and the other woman's wearing a man's tuxedo.

And she has a kind of butch male haircut and a pinky ring.

And I'd known the photo for a long time, but knew nothing about it.

And then I went to an exhibition of breast-size work and found out that the woman in the tuxedo's real name was Viet Morris.

...