French Exit

June 4, 2018
In this entertaining novel (subtitled a “tragedy of manners”) that lampoons the one percent, deWitt (The Sisters Brothers) follows the financial misfortune of wealthy widow Frances Price, a magnetic and caustic 60-something New Yorker who has spent most of the fortune her late lawyer husband amassed defending the indefensible. Insolvency comes as a shock to Frances despite repeated warnings her financial adviser about her extravagant lifestyle. She reluctantly accepts an offer to occupy a friend’s Parisian flat and sets sail with her rakish, lovesick son, Malcolm; her house cat, Small Frank; and her last €170,000. On board, she concocts a secret plan to spend every penny, while Malcolm befriends a medium who can see the dying (they’re green). In Paris, the book finds its surest footing, as Small Frank flees and a lonely neighbor connects Frances to a doctor, his wine merchant, and a private eye, who locates the medium to contact the cat, who may hold some secrets. The love of Malcolm’s life and her dim-witted fiancé also arrive, as does the owner of the now extremely crowded flat. DeWitt’s novel is full of vibrant characters taking good-natured jabs at cultural tropes; readers will be delighted.

June 15, 2018
"They're not normal people": an entertaining romp among the disaffected bourgeoisie.Early in the pages of deWitt's (Undermajordomo Minor, 2015, etc.) latest, the shiftless son of Frances Price--a meaningful name, that--wanders into the family's Manhattan kitchen to find his mother wielding a "long, gleaming knife." Having never seen her cook, Malcolm is puzzled. No, she's not cooking, says Maman: "I only like the sound it makes." Frances and Malcolm are sensual creatures, she a "moneyed, striking woman of sixty-five years," he "broody and unkempt." Now, suddenly broke, Frances decides to sell what she can and bolt to Paris, Malcolm in tow. Frances is a whirlwind, not a person to observe the rules: When the real estate agent says his fee will be 30 percent, nonnegotiable, she negotiates: "If you name another figure that is not fifteen percent, I will go to fourteen percent...and on down the line until your payment, and your sole function in regard to my own life, disappears altogether." Their fate in Paris and en route is to meet unlikely people, like one Boris Maurus, whose moniker prompts Malcolm to remark, with unusual insight, "We both have horror movie names," and the footloose Mme Reynard, who disappoints Frances by being rather affable and unstylish rather than offering a foil for "a night of implied insults and needling insinuations." Sometimes it seems like the most grown-up character in the novel is the cat, Small Frank, and in any event Paris is not always a picnic, as when Malcolm and Frances observe a knot of cops beating up a demonstration of étrangers: "They moved through the pack knocking down the immigrants one after the other; a tap on the skull and on to the next." Such sharply observed moments give deWitt's well-written novel more depth than the usual comedy of manners--a depth reinforced by the exit that closes the tale, sharp object and all.Reminiscent at points of The Ginger Man but in the end a bright, original yarn with a surprising twist.

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July 1, 2018
This smart, very nearly smart-alecky social comedy by the author of Undermajordomo Minor (2015) rewards casual fiction readers with a load of fun. Frances Price is a sixtysomething Upper East Side widow and socialite, with whom her 30-year-old single son still lives, and the cat in the household, Small Frank, also holds his own as a prominent character. All of a sudden, Frances' money goes down the drain due to her excessive spending, an inevitable crisis that gives the plot its dramatic tension. A friend of Frances' lends her the use of an apartment in Paris, and off to France on a steamship go Frances, her son, and Small Frank, to calculate what their next step in life should be. To put it succinctly, things don't settle down and go smoothly, but then Frances' philosophy has always been, It's fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next. Readers will be reminded of Peter Mayles' French-oriented fiction, which means that deWitt's delightful novel is made of high-grade chocolate.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2018

Blackly funny Booker short-listed deWitt portrays acidulous widow Frances Price, whose ethics-challenged litigator husband caused scandal in death as in life, compelling her to escape the scorn of New York's Upper East Side by heading to Paris with her laze-about, spoiled-rotten adult son and their enigmatic cat. Not surprisingly, personal and financial chaos await them. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

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