Our Lady of the Flowers by M.Jean Genet

Our Lady of the Flowers, often considered Genet's masterpiece, was written in the cell of a French prison where he was being held for theft. Here is the darker side of Montmartre, a world of pimps, thieves, prostitutes, queens and blackmailers, where 'morality' in the common sense of the word has no meaning. The story of Divine, a drag-queen prostitute, is interwoven with that of one of his lovers, a young man due to be arrested for murder. A story of sex, crime and death, Our Lady of the Flowers is a powerful and original debut novel, which put Genet into the front rank of French writers.