Francoise Sagan's lightly fictionalized novel, The Black Flower,
was based on Gigi's life. The novel, a best seller, was considered by
most critics a return to form for Sagan, whose recent plays and novels
had been met mostly with critical indifference.
Predating Truman Capote's In Cold Blood by more than a year, this work is considered to be one of the very first examples of "faction" or the "non-fiction novel". in which the lines between fiction and non-fiction were blurred. An excerpt below.
All the events that had occurred since his death had seemed theatrical and unreal. Days passed. Often, she found herself walking in the dawn hours. She wasn’t looking, but once again she saw it. Her own face splashed across the cover of a magazine. Like the thousands of her faces splashed across the covers of magazine covers before that. Still a shock to see that face staring back at her. Blankly, black and white. In sunglasses and a veil. That face on the magazine cover always seemed wiser than she. It was if that face was trying to tell her something. As if the face on the magazine was trying to say, “We have arrived. We are here. You and I have been baptized into a celebrity that only the those who have truly suffered or caused great pain can ever achieve."
Breakup with the Gastons. A cheery album never released? Pictures of her on the streets in a black dress, sunglasses, and scarf