Paul Bowles: The Cage Door Is Always Open

Plot Summary

When Paul Bowles moved to Tangiers, Morocco in 1949, it was a city divided into zones, a sanctuary for artists, writers and the wealthy to do as they pleased without fear of prosecution. Soon, Paul's friends and peers from America began visiting: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and many others. The Neo-Lost Generation, the Beats, the Hippies all searched him out, lured by the mysterious and magical world he depicted in his books. But that was only one side of the story. Though Bowles never hid his homosexuality, he was married to the lesbian writer Jane Bowles. What attracted them despite their extremely different personalities was a shared worldview: that one must travel to the point of no return in order to find salvation. Based on an exclusive series of interviews with Bowles shortly before his death and anecdotes provided by his friends and collaborators, Paul Bowles: The Cage Door is Always Open tells of a daring and visionary life and a relationship shaped by a co-dependency that went way beyond sexuality. Among the participants are Gore Vidal, Bernardo Bertolucci, John Waters, Ruth Fainlight, Edmund White, William S. Burroughs, Francis Bacon and many others.