Sagan's Second

When convent-educated Francoise Sagan* dashed off her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, in a summer month in 1953 after flunking out of the Sorbonne ("With my family angry at me, I had to do something"), she became one of Europe's fastest-selling, most controversial authors. The limpidly written tale of 17-year-old Cecile (a year younger than the authoress), who maneuvers her father's two mistresses to meet her own needs and causes the suicide of one, quickly became France's biggest bestseller (450,000 copies). Translated into 14 languages, it won the Prix des Critiques, touched off a sizzling French literary controversy and, in one U.S. paperback edition alone, sold an astonishing 1,000,000 copies in one month.

Cried Nobel Prizewinner Francois Mauriac of Sagan's talents: "The literary merit burst forth from the very first page and is indisputable." Others hailed her as a new star of letters. But not all were favorable; Paris divided between the pro-or anti-Sagan factions, and the critics honed their pens in anticipation of Author Sagan's second book. Would it prove her a writer or just another hot flash in the pan?

The second book is now out, and so is the verdict. Sagan's novel, Un Certain Sourire (A Certain Smile), written in two months, is the new literary sensation of Paris. FRANCOISE SAGAN REPEATS HER OFFENSE AND . . . WINS ! headlined one weekly. In Paris' Le Monde, venerable critic Emile Henriot wrote: "At her flying start two years ago, we could wonder if this 18-year-old girl, bitterly instructed . . . would be the woman of only one book, this terribly disturbing Bonjour Tristesse . . . We had to wait for her second book. Here it is . . . and it is perfect."

A Certain Smile is another tale of extramarital fun and games, this time between a teen-ager named Dominique, who leaves her schoolboy beau, and his suave, older, married uncle. Smile in its first month had four printings of a whopping 250,000 copies, already seems assured of outstripping even the success of Tristesse. Wags are suggesting that the certain smile shines from the face of Rene Julliard, her publisher. It will be brought out in the U.S. in August by Dutton.

* Real name: Francoise Quoirez.

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