When Bichette, the eponymous Tigress and uncrowned queen of Paris prostitutes, meets the grifter Fec, the unbelievable seems to happen: she is “tamed” and falls head over heels for him — and he for her. This sets off a dangerous game that spirals toward wild escalation in the luxury hotels and casinos of the French Riviera before reaching its grotesque culmination in Montmartre. The nihilism and invented personas recall Serner’s engagement with Dada as nothing anyone says or does can be taken at face value. Everything becomes a con, and love the greatest con of all.

Responding to initial attempts to ban The Tigress for its erotic content and demimonde patois by having it placed on a list of “trash and smut writings,” many well-known authors, such as Alfred Döblin, wrote testimonials in support of it.