I keep reading novels of Françoise Sagan

I don't really mean to.  The latest, Un peu de Soleil dans l'Eau froide, that I picked up at the library without examining it, was signed Quoirez--Ms. Sagan's actual patronym--which I didn't recognize, and I was several dozen pages into it before it occurred to me to look it up on Wikipedia to see why I was enjoying it so much. And enjoy it, as I have all of Sagan's work, I did.  I can't think of an equivalent in English: Someone whose writing is deft, clear and (especially for a woman) utterly unaffected; with "real" characters that the author seems entirely outside of.  The only thing that surprised me (shocked, and left me incredulous) was the desperate suicide of our heroine at the end--merely and simply because she has overheard our "hero" (her lover) telling his oldest and bestest male friend that he often wishes he were single again. So, what planet do women live on?

Actually, there was one other little thing that I found (and find) bizarre and inexplicable:  How, after getting frustratedly drunk and staying out all night without calling home, our fading but still handsome "hero" gets his face slapped--What kind of savages engage in such behavior? Heterosexuals?  Really?