Fabrice Virgili & Danièle Voldman - La garçonne et l’assassin

2011, Danièle Voldman, Fabrice Virgili, French,

Original title: "La garçonne et l'assassin: Histoire de Louise et Paul, déserteur travesti, dans le Paris des Années Folles" (The Boy and the Assassin: The Story of Louise and Paul, Transvestite Deserter, in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties)

'Paris, 1911. Paul Grappe and Louise Landy love and marry. Then comes the war. Paul deserted, disguised himself as a woman so as not to be arrested, and, for ten years, in the eyes of all, lived with Louise under the identity of Suzanne Landgard. He drags his wife into multiple sex games and even gains a small notoriety by being one of the first women to skydive.

In 1925, with the amnesty, Suzanne became Paul again. For the couple, things then start to go wrong... From astonishing archives (photos, letters, diaries, court documents), Fabrice Virgili and Danièle Voldman tell the very curious - and tragic - story of Paul and Louise, a story that mixes the issues of war trauma, cross-dressing, homosexuality, gender disorders, virility, domestic violence, and the complexity of romantic feelings. '

Available via goodreads.com