French Exit

Frances Price—tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature—is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son, Malcolm, is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Prices’ aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts.Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit. One ocean voyage later, the curious trio land in their beloved Paris, the City of Lights serving as a backdrop not for love or romance, but self-destruction and economic ruin—to riotous effect. A number of singular characters serve to round out the cast: a bashful private investigator, an aimless psychic proposing a séance, a doctor who makes house calls with his wine merchant in tow, and the inimitable Mme Reynard, aggressive houseguest and dementedly friendly American expat. Bestselling author Patrick deWitt has returned with a darkly comic novel, a one-of-a-kind “tragedy of manners.” Brimming with pathos, French Exit is a brilliant send-up of high society, as well as a moving mother-son caper that only deWitt could conceive and execute.