French Exit: A Tragedy of Manners

"The comic brilliance that sparked deWitt's earlier adventures ignites this 'tragedy of manners' and Frances Price, 'a moneyed, striking woman of sixty-five years, ' is revealed to be another of deWitt's sublime eccentrics.... Rarely has a transatlantic voyage and its limited diversions been so pithily evoked."--Washington Post

"Darkly comic, perfectly brilliant... Let deWitt take you along on this dizzying, wild ride, you'll love every second of it, and then hop back to the beginning for another go. It's worth the trip." --Nylon Magazine

"A modern story, a satire about an insouciant widow on a quest for refined self-immolation.... DeWitt's surrealism is cheerful and matter-of-fact, making the novel feel as buoyantly insane as its characters.... DeWitt is a stealth absurdist, with a flair for dressing up rhyme as reason."--The New Yorker

"Hilarious... Delightful.... In his book, as in [Edith] Wharton's, New Yorkers' wit and elaborate manners cannot hide the searing depth of their pain.... DeWitt is aiming for farce and to say something about characters who cannot get out of their own way, and he achieves both with élan."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[A] riotous tragedy of (ill) manners.... The show stealer here is deWitt's knack for scene setting and dialogue in the form of Frances' wry one-liners.... That Frances sure is a force to contend with. But what a classy broad."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Whatever you do, don't mess with Frances Price.... An entertaining portrait of people who are obsessed with the looming specter of death and who don't quite feel part of the time they were born into."--BookPage

"I will read every book Patrick deWitt writes.... He casts black humor and surrealist streaks of magic onto familiar literary terrains. French Exit's Manhattan milieu evokes midcentury writers like Salinger and Cheever.... DeWitt's writing is always intriguingly off-center."--Poets & Writers

"[DeWitt] creates and conveys entire worlds -- and not just names and places, but colors, smells, sounds and style.... Incredibly entertaining and oddly sympathetic.... And snappy stage-worthy dialogue -- deWitt's wheelhouse."--Eugene Register-Guard

"Darkly comic.... French Exit is both a satiric send-up of high society and a wilding mother-son caper."--Poets & Writers

"Sharply observed moments give deWitt's well-written novel more depth than the usual comedy of manners--a depth reinforced by the exit that closes the tale, sharp object and all. Reminiscent at points of The Ginger Man but in the end a bright, original yarn with a surprising twist."--Kirkus Reviews