Actress Louise Brooks is in 1928 Berlin playing the role of her life: Lulu—a childlike woman whose sexual desires destroy her, and destroy the men in her life as well. Lulu and Louise became happily and hopelessly enmeshed in this non-fiction novel that combines fact with fancy. Her relationship with her director is at the center of the book as she grapples with trying to make sense of her life. It's a modern story of what it means to be a woman, an actress, and a sexual being.

Some of this story is true. Some is not. I’ve taken liberties with chronology. That won’t bother the participants since everyone in the story is dead — and I have it on excellent and expensive legal authority that one cannot libel or defame the dead — only embarrass them.

Whether I have or haven’t is for you to decide. I have no thought of doing so. I love these people with all my heart. I’d like to express my admiration for Barry Paris, who brought Louise careening back to life in his 1989 biography. The woman he lovingly and brilliantly chronicled stayed with me.

Yet so much of what Louise wrote and what has been said about her is filled with obfuscations and outright fantasy. The “truth” of what went on during this episode in her life can’t really be known. Fictionalizing parts of the story gave me the freedom to imagine the actions and feelings of these brilliant people at a moment in their lives when everything seemed possible.