Liaison: the Gripping Real Story of the Diplomat Spy and the Chinese Opera Star [Hardcover]

Joyce Wadler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1993

The story behind the Broadway play M. Butterfly chronicles the strange love affair between a French diplomat in Beijing and a mysterious opera singer, a liaison in which the Frenchman is unaware that his lover is a man. 30,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1982, French diplomat Bernard Boursicot was arrested for passing intelligence information from his embassy in Beijing to Chinese opera singer Pei Pu. Boursicot claimed that he had spied in order to protect Pei Pu from punishment by the Chinese government when it was discovered that Pei Pu was his lover and the mother of his son. But investigation revealed that Pei Pu was in fact a man. Claiming an adopted child as his and Boursicot's, Pei Pu had successfully deceived Boursicot, in and out of bed, for 18 years. Wadler ( My Breast ) has written a vivid account of this bizarre story, drawing on interviews with Boursicot, Pei Pu and more than 100 of their friends and colleagues. Boursicot, a bisexual who has admitted to scores of love affairs, and Pei Pu have both served time in prison for espionage. And while their duplicitous lives are richly detailed here, their true natures remain a mystery. Photos not seen by PW. M. Butterfly will soon be released as a film.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

What better recipe for a nonfiction best seller than the combination of bizarre sex and espionage that makes this book irresistible? In 1964, Bernard Boursicot, a French embassy clerk in Peking, fell in love with Shi Pei Pu, an androgynous Peking Opera singer, who was actually a man pretending to be a woman disguised as a man! This Baroque story of deception casts Boursicot as a bisexual fool who dabbles in espionage; Shi Pei Pu as sexual magician who conjures up a Eurasian "son," the supposed fruit of their union; and a large number of assorted lovers, friends, and relatives. The basis for the hit Broadway play M. Butterfly , it may be read both as pure theater and as a study in sexual deconstruction. Unfortunately, Wadler is unduly obsessed with the purely prurient aspect of a story she tells very well, and her journalistic voyeurism finally verges on peep-show pornography. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/92.
- Steven I. Levine, Boulder Run Research, Hillsborough, N. C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 321 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; 1ST edition (September 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553092138
• ISBN-13: 978-0553092134
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,633,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's unbelieveable, September 11, 2003

By 

Melissa Loh (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Liaison: the Gripping Real Story of the Diplomat Spy and the Chinese Opera Star (Hardcover)

You just can't believe the entire story. You can't believe someone could live their life like this. The tale is definately gripping & it's narrated from a third person/Bernard perspective.