A minor
character in this novel states, “’I feel uneasy when things don’t make sense.’” That could be one description of how I felt
when I finished reading. I definitely wondered,
What did I just read? What was that all about?
Frances
Price is a 65-year-old socialite living in New York; she is the widow of
Franklin Price who had a reputation “as the most vicious, the most tenacious
litigator, defending only the indefensible” and taking “one repugnant case
after another.” Living with Frances is her 32-year-old son
Malcolm, a man-child who is aptly described by his fiancée as “this lugubrious
toddler of a man.” On the brink of
insolvency because of her extravagant lifestyle, Frances, Malcolm and their cat
Small Frank leave for Paris with what little is left of the family money. Once in Paris, they attract a number of
eccentric and rather pathetic followers while Frances devotes her time to
spending her remaining money, even “flushing hundreds [of euros] down the
toilet each morning.” The ending will be
no surprise to anyone who knows the meaning of the title.
Frances is
an unlikeable but interesting character.
She is both respected and feared by high society. Her handling of her husband’s death, going
skiing after finding his body, caused considerable scandal. Though she had totally neglected Malcolm for
years, once her husband died, she removed her son from his boarding school; now
she can hardly bear to have him out of her sight. The feelings of others are not her concern so
she most enjoys gatherings replete with “implied insults and needling
insinuations.” She mellows towards the
end of the novel, but after a lifetime of disregard for others, her maintaining
her air of superiority would be more convincing.
Malcolm is
like his mother. He drinks to excess,
steals items from party hosts, and has never worked in his life. Even his fiancée considers him “a pile of
American garbage.” What he also shares
with his mother is a lack of love when young; Frances describes how her mother
never spoke to her, refusing to even acknowledge her presence, so it’s not
surprising she describes her mother as “’a demon. And if such a place as hell exists then that’s
where she collects her mail.’” Frances’ behaviour as an adult is perhaps the
result of arrested emotional development.
Certainly, Malcolm, neglected as he was for over a decade, has an “inability
to experience emotion.”
The novel
is labelled “a tragedy of manners” which suggests a combination of two
genres: tragedy and comedy of
manners. It has more elements of the latter
than the former. It certainly has the
witty dialogue and social commentary; the repartee between characters includes
many clever lines and the book does satirize the conspicuous consumption of the
world’s 1 percent. The tragedy is
perhaps the plight of the placeless immigrants who serve as entertainment for
the wealthy who, both literally and figuratively, look down on them.
I preferred
the first part of the book while Frances and Malcolm are still in
Manhattan. Once they arrive in Paris,
the events become more farcical. The
deliberate absurdity of farces has never appealed to me. Finding a “hefty, flesh-colored, frost-coated
dildo” in a freezer strikes me as just too much bizarreness.
This is
perhaps a book which should just be enjoyed and not scrutinized too
seriously. Unfortunately, there was just
too much ridiculousness and oddity for my tastes so I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like The Sisters Brothers, but I thought I’d give the author another try. Now I’m concluding I’m not the audience for
Patrick deWitt.
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