French Exit: A Novel

French Exit:  A Novel by Patrick DeWitt              Audio Book: 6 hours, 53 minutes         Hardback Book:  256 pages        

I loved this book.    The banter between mother, Frances Price and her son Malcolm is so witty and so funny I was sorry to see this story come to an end.     The Price family is insanely rich but Mr. Price (Frank) is a total womanizing rogue who dies and while Mrs. Price is packed and ready to pull off on a fantastic trip to join friends and kick up her heels (the Prices didn’t have much in common anymore and each went their separate ways) but forgets something and comes back in the house to find her husband  laying dead.   She figures there is nothing that she can do at that point and the car is waiting so she continues on with her trip.   The story is so full of hilarious dialogue and situations it is a joy throughout.   Mrs. Price does go to jail over the death and lack of reporting it to authorities when she returns but all of the twists and turns along the way are hysterical.   The relationship she has with her son, Malcolm is also  comical.    I absolutely love the repartee between them – the humor is so dry in their remarks to one another and oh yes, there is a stray cat that wonders in one day and gives Frances the eye.    He makes himself at home no matter that neither Frances nor Malcolm like cats.    Frances becomes sure that the cat is her husband reincarnated coming back to haunt her.   She names the cat, “Little Frank,” and continues throughout the story to refer to him or when he comes in from his all night wonderings (much like his namesake) she greets him with, “Hello, A**hole!”    This story is too good, kudos to Patrick DeWitt,  I adored this book.   After getting out of jail and losing their huge fortune to bankruptcy due to “Big” Frank’s philandering Frances and Malcolm see no way out as they have been scandalized by all that has transpired so far lots happens, but, Frances decides she Malcolm and Little Frank will move to Paris to start a new life.    They do, lots more happens, Little Frank disappears and while neither Frances nor Malcolm like the cat, Frances feels the need to find him as she thinks it is somehow her penance to make sure the cat is cared for, secretly she may have developed a sort of bond to the cat.    She had been having conversations with him as talking to her husband “through” the cat who continues to react in ways his namesake did.    Frances hires a detective to find Little Frank by hocking some more of her jewelry and keepsakes.     She even ends up encountering a psychic through her son’s endeavors (that term is used loosely in this context).     The psychic is spot on and actually conjures up Big Frank it is so humorous the way it all plays together.   I’ve already given too much away but I highly recommend this book to any one – the writing is magnifique’!    This story will have you roaring with laughter it is that good.    Excellent read – so funny and you won’t believe the twists.    A total riot.    Like I said earlier, I LOVE THIS BOOK.

 - Shirley J