Called "a fantastic breakthrough into the dark content of female desire" (France-Soir), The Sexual Life of Catherine M. was the literary success of the year in France, selling over 300,000 copies and becoming the most controversial book on sexuality since The Story of O. Catherine Millet, the prominent editor of Art Press, has led an extraordinarily active and free sexual life -- from alfresco encounters in Italy to a gang bang on the edge of the Bois du Boulogne to a high-class orgy at a chichi Parisian restaurant. A graphic account of a life of physical gratification, the book is also a relentlessly honest look at the consequences of sex stripped of sentiment -- including the joys and sorrows of her open marriage -- and a completely fearless unmasking of the fallacies we cling to and the often shocking, sometimes disturbing truths of female sexuality. The French press was equally admiring and appalled by Millet's daring, but Le Nouvel Observateur certainly spoke for them all when it wrote, "Sex is this woman's continent, which she explores tirelessly. No one has ever described it like this." Now American audiences will have the opportunity to take home Catherine M. "This is the most explicit book about sex ever written by a woman." -- Edmund White "[Her] aloof, gracefully crystalline style is as elegant as any French pornography since Sade." -- Francine du Plessix Gray, Vogue "[A] stylistic tour de force recounting three decades of sexual exploits ... This book's pleasures are first and foremost literary." -- Saul Anton, Bookforum "[Millet] relates her sexual life without trembling, and allows us to share her pleasures." -- Daniel Bougnoux, Le Monde