Tete-a-Tete: the lives and loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre Hazel Rowley Chatto & Windus, 448pp, £20 ISBN 0701175087

Simone de Beauvoir has inspired countless others by her writings and by the unconventional life she necessarily lived in order to make those writings possible. If ever she was simplistically revered as an unreal saint, living an already perfected life, her own memoirs and, in particular, her letters, show her to be a struggling, passionate, vulnerable human being. Her flaws make her human; the writings they helped to inspire make her great. She has been well served by recent biographers such as Deirdre Bair and Lisa Appignanesi. Why do we need another book on her?

The answer is sex. De Beauvoir did not feel able, in her own lifetime, to write fully about her sexuality. Aged 70, she said in an interview (quoted by Hazel Rowley) that sex "is not just a personal matter but a political one too. I did not write about it at the time because I did not appreciate the importance of this question, nor the need for personal honesty. And I am very unlikely to write about it now because this kind of confession would not just affect me, it would also affect certain people who are very close to me."

Rowley has no such scruples. She "worshipped" de Beauvoir (whom she maddeningly calls Beauvoir throughout), but seems to have felt annoyed that when she herself interviews her heroine, asking "burning questions", the older woman refuses to give the desired answers: "She answered my questions as if by rote, without the slightest reflection or hesitation. By the time she ushered me out [sic] the door, I could see, and it saddened me, that she herself could not disentangle the reality of her life from the myth."

Perhaps de Beauvoir resented Rowley's nosiness. Perhaps she disliked Rowley's style. This book is certainly littered with cliches. Anyway, suitably saddened, and nobly interested only in "the truth", Rowley has decided that she will wrench open the bedroom door and spill the beans: "I wanted to portray these two people close-up, in their most intimate moments." There is a strong whiff, in all this, of the child peeping at the parents. Certainly the reader is made to collude in the writer's voyeurism.

The feminist project of personal truth-telling, or consciousness-raising, was practised in groups of peers. Women who trusted one another and understood the principle of confidentiality tried to discuss sexuality, among many other issues, in a way that illuminated it. The point was not to confess to a superior authority, such as a teacher, priest, therapist or revolutionary leader, but to talk with a group of equals, and only then try to understand, to reflect, to build theories.

Nothing could be further from our contemporary practice of self-revelation for its own sake. Feminists did indeed seek to break down the barriers between the personal and the public, but for political ends: to stop women's suffering.

In today's climate, everything is public, but for commercial ends. Sex, split off from feeling and memory, is more of a commodity than ever. Rowley has chosen to go with the easy, fashionable flow, to write a gossipy text that would better grace the pages of Hello!.

Jean-Paul and Simone become a groovy pair in berets and black polo necks: "Didn't everyone want to write in Paris cafes amid the clatter of coffee cups and the hubbub of voices, and spend their summers in Rome in complicated but apparently harmonious foursomes?"

Rowley reveals many details of her subjects' sex lives without once, apparently, seeking to think about them. This seems to me irresponsible. We know, for example, that Sartre, as a young man obsessed with an ideal of complete personal freedom, took many lovers and left de Beauvoir to cope with how she felt. Jealousy was not allowed. She then began to get involved with a string of young female students. This could be called exploitative behaviour. It could also be understood as de Beauvoir fighting back.

She was a woman in a man's world. Sartre had the power and control in their relationship and exploited her commitment to him. De Beauvoir could not exploit men, but she could exploit younger women. If he could have ardent young disciples, so could she. Sartre usually ended up sleeping with these young women, annexing them with his charisma and revolutionary authority.

It would have been fascinating to explore the idea of a power struggle between these two, but Rowley prefers to titillate us with scandalous titbits removed from their political and historical background. Sartre's endless affairs, manipulation and lying become boring after a while.

I was left admiring de Beauvoir's ferocious commitment to the hard work of writing. That is where we find her: in her books.

Michele Roberts's most recent novel is Reader, I Married Him (Virago)

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