Back in January I wrote here about Parisian Lives, Deirdre Bair’s delightful memoir of her life as a biographer. The following month I visited Paris, one of my final trips before the pandemic gripped the world, and sent a message to Deirdre, knowing how much she loved that city and how many memories it held for her of her times spent with Samuel Beckett and Simone De Beauvoir. We set one date after another for lunch in Manhattan and postponed them all as the city’s restaurants were forced to close. Ten days ago, Deirdre emailed me to say we would “celebrate in happier days”. That celebration and that happier day never arrived. Deirdre died suddenly on April 17th, the very day we had earmarked for lunch on West 44th Street.