French Exit

The money is gone. However many millions. The houses and cars are about to be sold at auction. The locks have been changed. For Frances Price it’s decision time. She and her adult son, Malcolm, have been burning through all the worldly assets of her dead husband, Franklin. Good. She disliked him when he was alive and her opinion hasn’t improved now that he’s dead. Besides, their cat, Small Frank, keeps looking at her strangely and it’s a bit unsettling. But with characteristic decisiveness (or madness) Frances gathers what resources they have left and hops aboard an ocean liner (first class!) to leave Manhattan and take up residence in Paris in an empty apartment owned by her friend, Joan. And Malcolm’s coming too. Hijinks show more ensue.

There is certainly a surfeit of wit and charm in this novel. But it is also pervaded by death. Not just Franklin’s death, but also death aboard cruise ships, death in parks, death in contemplation and planning. So, a bit dark, really. And it’s an open question whether the lightness of tone and the silliness of many of the characters can balance the gloom. If so, just.

DeWitt has created a memorable character in Frances. And almost as unmemorable a character in her son, Malcolm. The cat has more personality. But the delightful Mrs Reynard, Julius the Private Detective, and Madeleine the mystic lend plenty of support. At times it looks to become a French farce, but there is always the harsh reality of life on the street that can be seen out the window. And it doesn’t look pretty. Unfortunately the novel just sort of drifts off at the end once Frances achieves her anticipated exit. It’s as though there just isn’t enough life left to keep the story going.

So, I liked a lot of it, was amused and delighted with deWitt’s mastery of diction and pace, but I can only offer a lukewarm recommendation. Very gently recommended. show less

Frances, a particularly savage woman, is an aging widowed socialite who is losing everything. When bankruptcy hits, she takes what cash she can get and escapes to Paris with her 32 year old man-child son Malcolm and Little Frank, a cat who is apparently inhabited by the sprit of her shitty, amoral dead husband. Along the way, and despite every effort to avoid normal human interaction, they attract an assortment of oddball cohorts.

I don't believe that Frances is meant to be likable but I kinda fell in love with her. She's brutal, smart, wholly unaffected, and doesn't suffer fools. Basically Frances hasn't a single fuck left to give.

The writing and dialogue are quick, witty, and acerbic. The novel brought to mind an Oscar Wilde play and show more that can only ever be a good thing. show less

It’s rather difficult to develop much sympathy for Rich People Behaving Badly who suddenly realize that the well has run dry. And that’s precisely the situation Frances and Malcolm Price find themselves in when Frances’ spending habits have managed to deplete the estate left by her late and largely unlamented husband.

But deWitt isn’t asking the reader for sympathy. He paints Frances and Malcolm as generally without redeeming qualities. Frances is cold, manipulative, and condescending. Malcolm is a man-boy who has never been tasked with growing up. (All this of course gives the reader the chance to feel superior and to think that “If I had that much money, I’d certainly never blow it like that”, in a magical-thinking plea show more to Karma that Notice be Taken and that one be given the opportunity to demonstrate one’s ability to handle large buckets of cash for which one has not labored.)

At any rate, mother and son decamp to Paris with every dollar they can manage to hide from their creditors, moving into an apartment loaned by a friend, where they begin to accumulate an odd collection of acquaintances. Frances’ ultimate goal is telegraphed pretty early on, and as she meanders toward it, deWitt reveals bits and pieces of their respective childhoods which go a long way toward explaining, if not excusing, their anhedonic behavior. Even the climax isn’t much of a climax, and Malcolm appears to be wandering toward the rest of his life with the same disaffected attitude he had shown all along.

It’s a quick read, and some funny scenes play out in the Paris apartment, but overall it’s pretty dark humor. show less

Trigger warning: suicide

When the money runs out on the estate of Franklin Price, his widow, Frances, and their son, Malcolm, move to Paris on the proceeds of selling off their properties and material objects. They brave the ocean journey with their cat, Small Frank, whom they believe houses the spirit of Franklin. Once in Paris, they do eccentric rich-people things and collect an assortment of hangers-on as they blow the proceeds of their estate sale.

One of my favourite parts of the book was the ocean voyage to Paris. My grandmother used to travel from Canada to the UK by ship and she loves to talk about her trips, so those details served me well in imagining the scene. The part with Malcolm and the ship’s doctor edged toward a show more darker humour. On a grim note, the line “A cruise ship is a death ship” has an extra resonance these days.

The book is described as “brimming with pathos and wit”—it does contain those two things, although I found there was a lot more pathos and world-weary absurdity. The humour picked up once they were in Paris, with the interactions between all of the characters with connections to either Frances or Malcolm, and of course Small Frank’s observations. But the ending, with one character committing suicide, was shocking and depressing. So I’m not sure how to recommend this. You’ll know yourself best: if you want to give this a go, do. If you’d rather not, don’t. show less

Finally finished this after a brief but necessary hiatus, and it was wonderful. You need push the thought that this is a Wes Anderson film in the making right out of your head because there's really a lot more going on, and a lot of it is very lovely and funny, often at the same time. He has a way of getting to his characters by skating over them, then stopping and looking straight down with this simultaneously loving and unpitying eye. Every single inner child here is extremely needy, most likely because every single actual child was extremely neglected, and deWitt gives you the chance to care about that without sentimentalizing any of them. Agree with DG—the ending is marvelous. I will always have an eye peeled for Little Frank now, show more even if he was last seen in Paris. He's one of my favorite cat characters ever. show less

A French exit, the interwebs inform me, refers to leaving a party without saying goodbye. Apparently the Brits came up with that one, while the French call it filer à l’anglaise, Americans more commonly use "Irish goodbye" -- haven't heard that one, either -- or in my house, it's just known as "pulling a Matthew," after my husband's lifelong habit of disappearing when he's tired/done with people. (He's half Scotch-Irish, so...)

French Exit, the third novel I've read by Mr. deWitt, begins with mother/son duo Frances and Malcolm Price leaving a party, although it's not a true French exit, because they are taking their leave of the hostess, albeit with a phony excuse. Frances is a society widow known for her blunt wit, impeccable style, show more and gracefully aging beauty. Malcolm is a stilted man-child who hasn't strayed from her side in the 20 years since his father died. Overall, they reminded me a little of Lucille and Buster Bluth, had circumstances left them as a family of two (plus a cat who they believe to be a reincarnation of their not-so-dearly departed husband/father, Frank). The overall plot of the story focuses on a true "French exit," this one from their lives in New York City after Frances's extravagant lifestyle has left them all but penniless. Only their lawyer, Frances's childhood best friend, and Malcolm's stilted girlfriend know they're skipping town. Where to go? Why not France (specifically Paris)? And why not by ship?

I really enjoyed deWitt's [b:The Sisters Brothers|9850443|The Sisters Brothers|Patrick deWitt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1291999900s/9850443.jpg|14741473] -- a satirical take on the western genre -- but less so [b:Undermajordomo Minor|25089757|Undermajordomo Minor|Patrick deWitt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1425914522s/25089757.jpg|44778737], which despite its entertaining dialogue fell flat as a weird gothic fairytale. Here deWitt is back in his element with a modern romping farce (with a Wes Anderson feel) focused on the sharp-tongued Frances, who proves that a character does not have to be likable to be lovable. She bullies everyone, from the shifty guy in charge of liquidating the contents of the Prices' apartment to Susan, the woman unfortunate enough to love Malcolm. She hates pretty much everyone, except Malcolm.

"I find it refreshing to see a child so devoted," the [ship's] captain continued. "It's all I can do to get my daughter to speak with me on the phone." Quietly, as though it were half a secret, he said, "I was close with my mother, too."
"I despised mine," said Frances.
"Did you?"
"Despised."
Aiming for tact, the captain said, "The burden of motherhood can be a strain."
"She was a demon. And if such a place as hell exists then that's where she collects her mail." Frances signaled the waiter for another drink.

Once in Paris, the Prices find a strange little community and Frances's prickly exterior is explained. Always tongue-in-cheek, at one point Mr. deWitt has one character ask another, "Have you fallen in with a mad cast of plucky, down-at-heel characters?" While the character being asked hasn't, Frances and Malcolm most certainly have. Mostly hilarious, smart, and fun, there's also a certain heartwarming element that makes me want to keep reading whatever craziness comes out of deWitt's head. show less

I loved this book, with its truly awful central characters that are so horrible and detached from real-life that you can’t help but, well, liking them!

Frances Price lives in New York with her son, Malcolm, and her cat Small Frank, named after her late husband Franklin. Oh, and Frances is of the opinion the cat houses the spirit of her dead husband. Oh, and she is flat broke, having blown her husband’s fortune. They decamp to Paris – via a surreal sea voyage - and the story just gets more and more complicated, and more and more farcical. There is a private investigator, a medium, a wine merchant, and a fellow ex-pat who inveigles her way into their life. Throw in Malcolm’s ex-fiancée Susan and her new fiancé Tom, and Joan, show more Frances’s old friend from New York, and you get a sense of the chaos and ever-increasing oddness of the plot (which I won’t go into here!). Suffice to say I did laugh out loud on several occasions.

Never having read any of deWitt’s previous novels I was unsure what to expect. It reminded me a little of the satirical novels of Evelyn Waugh with their scathing look at the cruelty and disdain of the rich, living a life of such detachment from the real world that they become caricatures. At one point, as police and immigrants riot in a nearby park, the whole party watch from the apartment casually sipping cocktails and treating it as TV entertainment. This is Waugh with venom.

But, as we learn more about the back histories of both Frances and Malcolm throughout the book, I couldn’t help but feel there was a humanity there underneath the surface. It becomes a book about family, about the damaged relationship between mother and son, and about finding peace. The ending is shocking in its way, but cathartic. ‘Now came strangenesses’ the narrative tells us towards the end. Indeed, but this tragedy of manners illustrates how we are shaped by our past and how we long to escape its hold. Wonderful stuff. show less