A sad comic novel

There's something special about novels that can make a reader both laugh and cry, sometimes both at the same time. Patrick deWitt's French Exit is such a novel.

Frances Price is a 65-year-old heiress who has gone through her fortune and has virtually nothing left but a mama's boy son, Malcolm, who depends upon his mother for everything. A young woman, Susan, has fallen in love with him against her better judgment, but Malcolm prefers the company of his mother.

Booted out of their longtime New York City residence, they sell what possessions they have and escape to Paris, where they move into the apartment of Frances's only friend. Yet almost immediately she begins to make new friends, or at least hangers-on who want to see what happens next in the life of this fascinating woman. As for Frances herself, her main goal in life seems to be to spend what little money she has left as quickly as she can.

But I have not mentioned Little Frank, the cat Frances believes is her late husband reincarnated. Frank Price was a cut-throat attorney who made lots of money for his beautiful wife to spend. When she discovered his naked body following his heart attack, the cat was on his chest. Rather than call the authorities, Frances had just gone ahead with the ski trip she had planned. That act made the newspapers and made her a notorious woman, even in Paris when she arrives there years later, Little Frank in her handbag.

The book's title has multiple meanings, but at novel's end DeWitt leaves a hint of a possible French Entrance, a new life about to begin for at least one of his characters.

I listened to the audio version of the novel, perfectly read by Lorna Raver.