Catherine Millet's erotic memoir The Sexual Life of Catherine M. was a landmark book-a portrait of a sexual life lived without boundaries and without a safety net. Described as "eloquent, graphic-and sometimes even poignant" by Newsweek, and as "[perhaps] one of the most erotic books ever written" by Playboy, it drew international attention for its audacity and the apparently superhuman sangfroid required of Millet and her partner, Jacques Henric,...

Jean is a successful publisher. He has refined tastes and abundant material possessions, among which he seems to include his wife, Gabrielle. But in a single afternoon, Gabrielle decides to leave him for another man and then abruptly reverses her decision. Now, everything that Jean believed to be true about his life and marriage falls apart.

Having moved to a rustic farm with her older husband, Gemma soon tires of their simpler life and finds distraction in a torrid affair with a handsome young aristocrat. Meanwhile, Martin, a local baker and lover of literature, becomes besotted with Gemma, but also fears she may suffer the same fate as the heroine in his favorite novel.

Moreau, who won the award for Best Actress at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, is Anne Desbard̈es, a wealthy, bored housewife who believes she has witnessed a murder in a quayside bistro. Rushing to the scene of the crime, she strikes up a conversation with Chauvin, an employee of her husband who also saw the crime. The troubled woman continues to return to the caf,̌ increasingly identifying herself with the murder victim and becoming obsessed with...