Keep This Quiet! captures the fear and loathing, charm and romance of Hunter in the late Sixties—along with tales of two other underground authors. Included are genuine, funny letters he sent Margaret during and after the publication of Hell’s Angels. Also, priceless reminiscences of some of Hunter’s oldest friends: William Kennedy, David Pierce, Rosalie Sorrels, and editor Jim Silberman—covered in no other account. Featured in addition are “poète maudit” Jan Mensaert and Greenwich Village “poet genius” Milton Klonsky.

Imagine the Montparnasse cafes, such as Le Select - which was famous for French Onion Soup - in Paris 1965. I read about the history of artists - painters, writers, philosophers, etc. - who hung out there, sometimes to keep warm, and decided to go.

Packing my bags in my New  York City Greenwich Village one-room rent-controlled apartment, I sailed alone on a boat to France, intent on starting "my novel." What better  place. In fabled Montparnasse cafés in the 1920s many poor writers, like Hemingway, spent long hours - as documented in A Moveable Feast. Also, Picasso (see the photo at La Rotonde). Or Henry Miller. Writers, painters, dancers, philosophers mingled and kept warm. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir lived in the neighborhood and are buried now in the Montparnasse cemetery. The atmosphere was still alive in 1965. Why wouldn't it be? It was the 1960s. The menu in the slider is from yet another famous Montparnasse café; it displays the signatures of some of the regulars. But I actually sat down to begin writing just down the street, at "Le Dome."