The Catacombs
by William Demby

African-American expatriate Bill Demby narrates his attempts to write a novel about his friend Doris, a black actor currently working in Europe. Utterly dependent upon Doris for the development of his novel, he is both a participant in and observer of her life as she enters into an affair with an Italian count. Bill Demby’s growing emotional and artistic involvement in the tumultuous affair of his character/friend leads him on an existential quest for the meaning of truth and fiction, both lived and created, in a world torn by the social upheaval of the early sixties.