From the start of this novel I was not sure if I liked it or not. All the elements I loved about 'The Sisters Brothers' (the only other Patrick deWitt novel I have read) were present in 'French Exit' - dark subjects, surreal settings and conversations, and a lot of humour - but somehow what was hilarious in the mouths of the characters in that book sounded petulant, grating and downright unpleasant when being expressed by contemporary upper class American voices. But possibly, that’s the point.

In turns, I both hated and loved this book. The most ridiculous section about two thirds of the way through the book is genuinely hilarious but it is also so ridiculous that it lifts the reader out of the story and proves to be the ‘make or break’ section of the book – at this point, you either go with it or hurl your copy across the room – I did the former after metaphorically doing the latter.

So the dilemma: either the author is very smart and wants us to go along with his surreal and potentially very funny musings on modern existentialism and the role of capitalism and the rich, or he is expecting his readers to swallow whatever he throws at them. And I genuinely can’t work out which. But possibly, that’s the point.

This is my second Patrick deWitt novel, (after Undermajordomo Minor) and I have to conclude his particular brand of humour doesn't work for me. I admire the cleverness within each chosen genre, but the surface style is never quite involving enough. People often reference Wes Andersen when talking of deWitt and I can see where they are coming from although for me, there is a warmth in Andersen's film and a delightful humour that is missing for me in deWitt's fiction.

Where to start? As with all of Patrick deWitt's books, this is quirky, ambitious and different to other things you've read. He constantly surprises with his genre-busting novels and novellas and is always pushing boundaries. All of this makes for an exciting reader experience. However, few people constantly experiment without suffering occasional flops and I'm afraid that for me, French Exit does not work well.

This is a strange story with a mother-son relationship at its heart but since all of the characters are hard to either like or empathise with I found it impossible to really care. For me this is a major flaw. I can cope with immoral, amoral and even despicable characters but if I don't feel anything for them I disengage. I also felt that this was deliberate, a vicarious sharing of the ennui experienced by Frances and Malcolm. DeWitt is a talented manipulator of his reader but for me personally, it was a push too far. Some of the satire was wonderful but when it veered into farce, he lost me.

I still would recommend The Sisters Brothers to anyone and have just finished Ablutions but I'm afraid this one missed the mark.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity times As this in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely love DeWitt's brand of subtle but oh so dark humour and it's found in abundance in this "tragedy of manners". His characters are all singularly dislikeable and discomfortingly weird. They are also perfectly drawn and a delight to read. This story manages to be quirky without disappearing too far down the rabbit hole, mixing the dysfunctional relationship between anacid tongued and horribly overbearing mother and her passive and rather drippy son with a dash of supernatural magical realism. The dialogue is razor sharp - every barb the mother spits elicits equal parts horror/disgust and begrudging admiration/a wry smirk. The very awful yet somehow glorious Frances is just a tour de force. Her behaviour, attitude, treatment of her son/everybody and, of course, everything she says are all just so despicable that her fleeting moments of vulnerability are all the more poignant. The ensemble cast of characters is just a joy - a perfectly written bunch of oddbods and misfits that provide a warm and humorous counterpoint to the darkness of Frances. Trigger information: the suicide scene is unmitigated but not sensationalized.

French Exit is so deliciously decadent that you will want to drink it, shaken not stirred. It is classy, it is wicked and it is irreverent.
The assemble of characters dazzles. The three main heroes (though they don’t qualify for that term in any way, shape of form) are Frances, Malcolm and Small Frank. Frances is an extravagant rich widow hellbent of self-destruction, financially and otherwise. Her son Malcolm is a man frozen in inaction, content to drift through life without any clear direction or destination, sort of attached to his mother like a barnacle to the underbelly of a sinking ship. And Small Frank is the late husband-father who has found home in a body of a domestic cat.
In transit to self-destruction Francis, accompanied by her two dependants, makes a stop in Paris.
At first sight you may think this book shallow, degenerate and immoral, but very soon you come to realise that there is a depth of despair and surrender under the surface of flamboyance and extravagance. Patrick de Witt is very elegant in hinting at it. He doesn’t tell you about it. He doesn’t let his characters tell you about it. Still, you know that depth sits there – the root of all trouble.
The story is character driven, and each character is a scream – unique, distinct and irredeemable. But you wish them well, you root for them, you hope for them.
It is a riot of a book!

A hilarious tale of a dysfunctional mother/ son relationship which is smart and readable if a little slight.
DeWitt really can turn his hand to any genre.

Usually, when I read books set in Paris, they are quirky romances or coming of age stories but this time I tried something a little bit different. Maybe this is because rather than being a novel by a French author French Exit is by a Canadian writer now living in the USA and, on the whole, it features American characters. And, oh boy, these characters are all the larger than life type of Americans!

Frances Price is the widow of a very rich, very succesful and rather nasty man whose hedonistic New York lifestyle has burned through her inheritance. When the banks start to refuse her line of credit and serious men with clipboards start listing all her assets Frances manages to sell some of her less obvious valuables and sets sail for Paris with her grown-up son, Malcolm. They are followed on board ship by their elderly cat, Small Frank, who may or may not be inhabited by the spirit of the late Frank Price and make their way to an apartment borrowed from Frances’ oldest (and, probably, only) friend Joan. Selfish and spoiled Frances has decided she will spend all her money – every last cent – and then end her life: But can she continue with this plan as she and her son manage to accrue a motley collection of new friends and acquaintances – including Madame Reynard (an ex-pat), a psychic, a private detective, a doctor and his wine merchant friend?

Although the characters and situations in this book seem very American at first – big, bold and brash – the issues which are raised during the story are as subtle and bittersweet as anything I’ve come across in continental novels. Malcolm is a mess, unable to fend for himself, seeking refuge in food and alcohol, yet his on again, off again fiance can’t help but love him: given what we learn of his childhood I’m surprised he is functional at all. Even Frances gradually reveals some of the factors which led to her brittle, demanding and emotionally cold character. Between the almost slapstick comedic episodes we discover that almost any person is redeemable (even if they have become a cat) – if only they will allow themselves to be.

I loved this novel. It’s a quirky tale of mother and son Frances and Malcolm who, living in New York, take a trip to Paris. They have lost most of their wealth, mainly because Frances thought she’d be long gone before the money ran out. So, they take a boat to Paris and have a somewhat odd, liberating time.

I really like DeWitt’s style - the characters, such as Joan and Madeleine, the debauchery and stories they have. The discovery that the cat is Frances’ deceased husband, reincarnated, grates a little and takes the story too far. However, as the story progresses, the presence of the cat, particularly near the end, adds a somewhat melancholy feel.

I haven’t read any of DeWitt’s other work but would like to. The style is unusual but very readable and enjoyable.

(3.25 stars) If you’ve read The Sisters Brothers, you’ll recognize deWitt’s deadpan, black humor here. This story of a prickly mother and her hapless son is less violent but more caustic, and initially difficult to love because of the characters’ flippancy and the unrealistic dialogue. No one really talks like this, I kept thinking to myself. But Frances and Malcolm grew on me as they sail from New York City to Paris and settle into a friend’s apartment with the cat Small Frank – no ordinary feline but an embodiment of Frances’ late husband. When Small Frank goes missing, mother and son enlist the services of a private investigator to find the medium who was a fellow passenger on the boat so they can have a hope of reconnecting with him.

All told, the pair attracts quite the crowd of random hangers-on (in deWitt’s in-joke, one character asks another, “Have you fallen in with a mad cast of plucky, down-at-heel characters?”). Frances makes a point of using up her thousands of remaining euros, so they host a lavish cocktail party that includes as entertainment Balderdash, arm wrestling, and a talent show. There are more truly great scenes, so ridiculous they jolt you into a startled laugh: finding a dildo in a freezer, a dead pigeon falling on a homeless man’s chest, and [SPOILER: Small Frank attempting suicide from the top of the Eiffel Tower not once but twice; darn it, he just keeps landing on his feet! ]. But it’s a challenge to warm to a book without a kernel of sincerity, and I wish it hadn’t ended the way it did. I also thought the obscenities lowered the potentially highbrow tone.

A wonderful, quirky read full of wit and eccentric characters. A good book for fans of literary fiction, black comedy and the beautiful city of Paris. Highly recommended.

I wanted to read this as I adored the author Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011). I didn't have quite such a visceral reaction to this story, but I tore through it and enjoyed doing so enormously.

It's darkly funny and even though its characters are profoundly dislikable, such as deWitt's talent that you find yourself rooting for them in spite of it all. I subsequently read an author interview where he said that his model for the story was Evelyn Waugh's comic tragedies (tragic comedies?) and while that influence is clear the novel doesn't seem dated at all – it's very fresh. Highly recommended.

I loved everything about the Sisters Brothers and was really looking forward to this one. It was well worth the time and trouble, as it was funny, mordant, well written with some lovely characterisation and a genuine feel for Paris and I read it through in a couple of sittings.

The man can write and is also never going to be typecast. I look forward to his next offering.

Congenial mother-son ocean-hopping saga, memorable characters and relationships.

4.5 stars.

There should be an equivalent in literature to the 'manic pixie dream girl' trope, for eccentric older women who dance to their own tune. Frances reminded me of Audra in 'Standard Deviation', and is quite an impressive creation for a male writer.

Adult son Malcolm lives with his mother Frances, both far outstripping their income with their outlandish spending, which eventually catches up with them. In order to avoid the financial implications, they sell what they can and sail to Paris, meeting a variety of unusual characters along the way. While you might argue that nothing of much import occurs, the book is filled with small incidents, moments of humour, and an expected storyline featuring Small Frank the cat, a possible reincarnation of Frances' dead husband.

Tragi-comic, it felt as though Frances couldn't possibly fall, she would surely bounce. Malcolm's relationship with his mother was bordering on the bizarre and unhealthy, his unsophisticated constitution frustrating as well as funny.

You could not box the author in, the author of this and Western 'The Sisters Brothers'. Both with some quite dark humour, the feel of a place and time here well-drawn. The story hints at what is to come, and it was a little surprising but entirely appropriate.

A good choice for reading groups, some fascinating characters to dig into.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

A fabulously enjoyable little diversion. I can easily visualise it on stage or screen as a quirky little black comedy. The characters are well written and the situation is bizarre to say the least. Small Frank was superb; I’d love to see a novel from his perspective . Perfect for a bit of frivolity between weightier tomes.

So there's a widow called Frances, whose husband Franklin may have been reincarnated into a cat called Little Frank, and she moves to France in a novel called The French Exit. Can you see what he did?

I loved The Sisters Brothers and Undermajordomo Minor - both cartoony and quirky. But The French Exit seems to be grounded in real places. For a while it was not set in any particular time, until someone spent euros in Paris which fixed it in a narrow timespan. We're dealing with reality here - and it's not what we were expecting.

This short little novel starts off with an intriguing premise: Frances is a rich and eccentric widow - she discovered her dead husband but decided not to report the death until she had got back from a skiing holiday. As you do. She has blown through all the money and now has to decide what to do. There is never any great mystery that she is going to head to Paris on a last hurrah before ending it all. Which is what she proceeds to do.

Even though this is a short novel, it takes a mighty long time to read. It manages the rare feat of being both predictable and hardy to follow. New characters pop up without warning; new issues seem to appear without ever having started. Still, though, the book plods on to its inevitable conclusion - we have mystics, talking cats, a private detective, the Eiffel Tower - but nothing really joins up. There are gags for gags' sake - with an unfulfilled need for some kind of intrigue to hold it all together. With hindsight I should have stopped reading but I was just waiting for it all to click together. I should have known it wouldn't

This is not the worst book I have read, but it is one of the most disappointing.

If this were a film, Tilda Swinton would play the lead character, Frances and the film would be directed by Wes Anderson.

This book could not be more brilliant.

I wanted to hate Frances, but found her too witty and charming to resist. She and her son Malcolm do some loathsome things: steal, belittle people, act selfishly, but ultimately those flaws are outweighed by their bold personalities.

The host of other colourful characters, including Small Frank the cat, are brilliantly written and serve to complete a well-rounded tale.

Reminiscent of Chekhov's comic tragedies, we know this "tragedy of manners" will not having a happy ending in the traditional sense. Frances is like the Cherry Orchard's Ranyevskaya in her spending, her selfishness, and desire to go to Paris. Self-destructive and often mean, she flirts outrageously with people and successfully manipulates everyone - including the reader - into wanting things to go her way.

It astounded me that this writer captured everything from love and friendship to death and depression with both depth and humour.
Descriptions are rich and often made me laugh out loud - it is really a book made up of wonderful vignettes tied together. Without giving long quotes here, I can't do those vignettes justice, so instead will say: read the book.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing and Patrick deWitt for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My first deWitt – and a read which is decidedly quirky. At first it seems nothing more that a piece of frothy entertainment as Frances Price, hapless son in tow, bitches her way through the world (on a hostess: ‘born to bore’, she dismisses; on a party guest: ‘Men’s teeth in a child’s mouth. I had to look away’.)

But soon a more uneasy sense of <I>something</I> starts to seep through: Malcolm’s abandonment at school until his father dies and his glamorous, eccentric mother pitches up to take him gloriously away; the moment when Frances tells her lawyer that she’d expected to die before she’d spent her way through her husband’s fortune, and yet she’s still here. For all the romp and farce there’s an underlying sense of tragic existential unease. Witty, for sure, but there’s more to this than meets the eye: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I’m afraid I didn’t get on with French Exit at all. It seems to me to be a novel which thinks a great deal of itself but adds up to very little.

Frances, a wealthy, viciously bitchy, snobbish New York widow (Really? Again?) completely dominates her overweight, ineffectual son Malcolm, and destroys any other relationship he may develop (Really? Again?). Her financial profligacy means that she is reduced to the abject penury of her last few hundred thousand dollars, and her only (improbable) friend offers her use of a vacant apartment in Paris. This takes the best part of a hundred pages and although the book improves a bit in Paris, I simply couldn’t raise any interest in the story or its uninteresting and clichéd characters. We are told that Patrick deWitt is taking satirical jabs at his subjects, but to me it just felt like another uninteresting novel of New York’s rich – in whose lives the rest of the world ought to be hugely interested, apparently. Malcolm has a fiancé (well, any woman would fall in love with an obese, gauche, inarticulate man with some bizarre habits who is utterly dominated by his vile mother, wouldn’t she?) who at one point thinks, “The mother of the man she had accidentally fallen in love with did not approve of their union: this was so. But it was a common problem, wasn’t it? It was a trope.” Well, yes, it is, as is much of the rest of the book. The trouble is that none of it is much more than that.

Oh, it’s “beautifully written” of course – but in that self-conscious “beautiful writing” way that makes it often seem tediously arch to me and sometimes downright mannered; the use of “this was so” in the little extract above, or “Malcolm was yet in his hotel room,” (“yet”?) for example. It just jars on me, seeming out of place in context and thoroughly self-regarding.

French Exit has had some favourable reviews, but I found it to be dull, mannered and much of it was a struggle to get through. There have been some very fine novels involving New York’s rich; The Bonfire Of The Vanities, A Little Life and some others spring to mind, but this doesn’t have anywhere near their quality of satire or insight. I didn’t utterly hate it, but it was hard work and I really didn’t get much from it. I doubt whether I’ll bother with any more of Mr deWitt’s work.

(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)

I’d enjoyed The Sisters Brothers though not as much as many readers had. Perhaps this new offering from deWitt would charm we in a way that his Western novel had failed to?

The story of a dysfunctional relationship between an unpleasant mother and her very odd son (not to mention the deceased father who may now be living within the body of the pet cat) is a very strange offering indeed. Wealthy widower Frances Price had gained notoriety – and social exclusion – as a result of her having discovered her husband’s lifeless body in the marital bed and then instead of notifying the appropriate authorities choosing to chase of to the ski slopes for the weekend. Very soon she’d picked up her son from the boarding school, in which he’d been imprisoned by the selfish mother and her even more self-centred husband, and launched into a self destructive spending spree. When the cash ran out she took the only option available which was to abscond to Paris where she set herself and her son up in a borrowed flat.

There’s a bit more to this comedy of manners than that but, in truth, not a lot more. I suppose the attraction to some will be in the way the author ruthlessly satirises high society and it’s fair to say that it does have a sprinkling of clever lines and funny moments. But it all fell somewhat flat for me – I just couldn’t find it within me to get excited or even care about what happened to this implausible pair.

I did manage to drag my way to the book’s conclusion, but only just. It’s an absurd and surreal novel that will, I’m sure, be a hit with some readers – but unfortunately not me.

I rather liked the main character here, a woman blessed with beauty and a wit that turns acid as the years go by in a privileged life in Manhattan. Widowed and soon bankrupt, she relocates with her 30-ish son to Paris. Here it was that she was once happy, before a long marriage to the monstrous Frank took its toll on her spirit, and here she hopes again to enjoy the anonymity and lack of judgement the city gave her in her youth. I liked her brutal honesty and pragmatism, her outrageous behaviour made me smile, and her relationship with her son over the years, slowly revealed as the story progresses, is touching. So far, so good. The weakness in this story for me were the characters surrounding Frances, there presumably to provide comic relief and a foil to her acerbic wit, but none of them particularly interesting in themselves, perhaps intentionally so. I found the direction the action takes surprising, though hinted at as we go along, but no spoilers from me here.

Apart from the odd reference to credit and phone cards, and the immigrants camping out in the park, this could be set a century ago. It is written in what I imagine is a deliberately old-fashioned style, along the lines of P G Wodehouse, much darker in tone, though, and without his humour or sense of farce. Enjoyable, but not enough to make me want to seek out the author’s other works.