Whatever you do, don't mess with Frances Price. If you're a waiter, and the "moneyed, striking woman of sixty-five" who is the protagonist of French Exit enters your restaurant, make sure you're polite to her, or she just might take out her perfume, spritz the centerpiece and set it on fire.

She has nice qualities, too—she gives money to charities and the homeless—but she's also likely to leave for a ski holiday in Vail rather than contact the authorities when she discovers that her husband, a ruthless litigator, has died of cardiac arrest.

The tabloid scandal caused by her indifference hasn't stopped her from living an extravagant Manhattan lifestyle since her husband's death 20 years ago. But enforced austerity is about to begin. Her financial adviser tells her that the money she inherited has run out. Sell everything that isn't nailed down, he tells her, and begin again.

When an old friend offers her the use of a Paris apartment, Frances reluctantly accepts. Soon, she's sailing across the Atlantic with Malcolm, her 32-year-old kleptomaniacal "lugubrious toddler" of a son, and Small Frank, an elderly cat she is convinced houses the spirit of her late husband.

Patrick deWitt has great fun with this premise. He populates the story with such characters as Susan, the fiancée Malcolm leaves behind in New York; Madeleine, a medium who can tell when someone is about to die because they look green; and Madame Reynard, an American widow who befriends the Prices because of her fascination with the tabloid scandal.

If French Exit doesn't always reach the zany heights it strives for, it's still an entertaining portrait of people who are obsessed with the looming specter of death and who don't quite feel part of the time they were born into.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

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.

Frances Price, wealthy widow of high-rolling lawyer Franklin Price, has made it her mission to spend every dime of her inheritance. As the story opens, she has very nearly accomplished this goal. She and son Malcolm find themselves forced to sell everything of value left to them. With their cat, Small Frank, they take up residence in a friend's apartment in Paris. They collect a variety of roommates, including the owner of the apartment, a lonely expat, a wine merchant, a private detective, a clairvoyant, and Malcolm's fiancée. When Small Frank goes missing, Frances calls on the clairvoyant to contact him. At the story's dark and emotionally complex end, they all get what they want—more or less. Acclaimed author deWitt (The Sisters Brothers) crafts a story that entertains to the last page. His characters are quirky caricatures, warped by their social position and wealth by their nurturing (or lack thereof) and mostly bereft of any practicality. The result is both comical and sad. In the long view, the moral seems to be that money can't buy love, so you might as well spend the cash. VERDICT General fiction readers who enjoy the ironic and absurd will find this book amusing. [See Prepub Alert, 2/12/18.]—Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

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. (Aug.)