Sleeping with the Enemy (Vaughan)

Discussion Questions
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Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Sleeping with the Enemy:

1. What do you make of Coco Chanel? What kind of portrait does Hal Vaughan paint of her? How does this book's view of Chanel differ from the generally accepted one ? What did you know of Chanel before reading Sleeping with the Enemy...and how, if at all, were your views altered after finishing it?

2. What other individuals stand out, as either unlikeable or admirable, in Vaughan's account?

3. Talk about Paris as Vaughan describes it during the 1920s and 30s? What kind of place was it?

4. How well did the Parisian upper classes fare during the war, as compared with Parisians at large? Were you surprised at the disparity?

5. Talk about Chanel's activities during the war. What surprised—or shocked—you most?

6. The author quotes Chanel as saying, “from my earliest childhood I’ve been certain that they have taken everything away from me, that I’m dead.” What is the author's tone as he writes about Chanel? Does Vaughan seem, in some way, to exculpate Chanel—suggesting that she acted out of concern for her nephew or because of her sense of childhood abandonment? Do these reasons justify her actions? Do you wish Vaughan were more judgmental toward Chanel...or do you appreciate his detached, more objective stance?

7. What do you make of Chanel's anti-semitism? Were her views extreme for the time? Or did they reflect the prevailing atitudes of many, if not most, Europeans? (Does that make any difference?)

8. Does Vaughan make a convincing case that Chanel was a Nazi spy? For whom did she spy...on whom was she spying...and what specific information did she turn over?

9. Some critics have claimed that Vaughan offers an over-abundance of documents and leaves too many contradictions unresolved for readers to be able to sort things out clearly? Do you agree or disagree?

10.  After the war, why was Chanel never punished for her activities? Who protected her...and why? Should she have been brought to account?

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