French Exit

2020 Longlist

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 Price’s ageing 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 Light serving as a backdrop not for love or romance, but self-destruction and economic ruin — to riotous effect

About the Author

Patrick deWitt was born on Vancouver Island in 1975. He is the author of three critically acclaimed novels: Undermajordomo Minor, Ablutions and The Sisters Brothers, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Stephen Leacock Medal, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Librarian’s Comments

“French Exit satisfies with its delightful economy. Barely a word is out of place, and the dialogue is particularly arch and ironic” (Winnipeg Free Press). DeWitt’s novel is deceptively short and easy to read”. “Underneath DeWitt’s witty, sassy prose lies a striking and biting critique of familial relationships, society and class.  It’s a perfect mix of dark sardonic humour and carefree antics with a little existential angst thrown in” (Vancouver Province). The memorable characters, droll scenes and crisp, tight writing in this tragedy of manners stay with the reader long after the last page.  Saint John Free Public Library, Canada