Once again a writer I woudn’t have tried but for the audiobook selection at our library. I knew of the author’s name because he stands on the French bestsellers lists, but I had assumed that it was light (read: shallow) entertaining Parisian (read: snobbish) read. Beware of assumptions! Entertaining it was, and absorbing, and surprisingly fun, especially while dealing with serious matters!
The books starts right before Christmas, when Marc invites his 4 best friends for a traditional dinner together and to bring them some news: he’s fallen in love with a Chinese young woman, he will get married very soon and he wants them to be their witnesses. The news is greeted with disbelief: Marc is a serial lover, not the marrying kind, and the picture of the fiancée shows a plain, ordinary girl who might well be a gold-digger. But the 4 friends have little choice but to agree to take part to his wedding.
Circumstances are indeed out of the ordinary. Marc is a famous fashion photographer. A hugely successful star. Thanks to his money he has been able to financially support his 4 best friends: one has become an art gallerist, another manages a luxury hotel, yet another one is basically jobless but for articles to support the Dalai Lama, and the last one is his personal assistant and spends his time grooming Marc’s luxurious cars and managing Marc’s dismissed girlfriends and agenda.
Then the book turns to tragicomedy: Three days before the wedding, they all find themselves at the airport to greet the fiancée with awful news: Marc has been killed in a car crash the day before. Do they want to destroy her by announcing her these news right there or let her enjoy a day in Paris under a false pretence before she takes a plane back to China, a widow before even having gotten married? They dither and fall under the charm of an astoundingly charming young woman: they’re unable to blurt out the truth. Is she a manipulator or the perfect wife for their late friend? Each of the 4 friends have reasons to love and hate her, and a score to settle with Marc.
I won’t go in any more detail about the plot, because it has many twists and turns, jumping from one friend’s point of view to the next with a share of secrets for each, that was highly entertaining. Of course, you have first to relinquish any requirement for realism: none of this is very believable, but still all the characters are endearing and I was game for the ride. It’s more like a fairy tale for adults, so you should expect some clichés too, but in the whole characters who at first seemed one-dimensional developed an interesting depth.
It was also a good analysis of friendship and manipulation, when the friends all discover that Marc’s lavish gifts put them all in a relationship mode close to dependency and that stopped them from exploring new interests or simply from moving forward in their own life. It’s not a grand masterpiece, but it reads fast and well and it was well worth the few hours spent with it.
Smithereens 
I wanted to leave a comment about the McMahon but the comments are closed on that, did you know?
oops, my mistake. I opened them again, you can go ahead! Thanks for letting me know.
I enjoyed the van Cauwelaert novel I read, though the title now escapes me. But it began with the main protagonist’s death and then carries on with his narration from the afterlife. One of my students did a translation project on one of his novels, and said he’d really enjoyed it – that was what sparked my interest. I don’t think of him as a top notch writer, but as an interesting one who seems to pick some unusual premises for his novels. I’ll have to try him again!