If only Georges Simenon had been a bit more like Maigret
This article is in The Spectator’s October 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. Georges Simenon, creator of the somber, pipe-smoking Paris detective Jules Maigret, pursued sex, fame and money relentlessly. By the time he died in September 1989, Simenon had written nearly 200 novels, more than 150 novellas, several memoirs and countless short stories. He matched this demonic productivity with sexual athleticism. ‘The goal of my endless quest,’ Simenon explained,‘was not a woman, but the woman.’ He demanded sex at least once daily from his wives, secretary, and housemaid-mistresses. How he found the time to write so many books is a mystery that Maigret might struggle to crack. Simenon described himself, without irony, as ‘a psychopath’.
