Author of some sixty plays, Fabrice Melquiot is publishing his first novel this fall. In a prose that is both sensitive and satirical, carried by strong images, an irresistible cadence and observations of admirable lucidity, the French writer develops here the plot that he had sketched in The One Dollar Storya monologue defended with panache by Sophie Desmarais at the Prospero in 2022. Crossing registers (from Leonard Cohen’s song lyrics to conversations with the afterlife) and eras (from the 1960s to today), the novel features a colorful gallery of characters. Throughout this existential quest on the roads of the United States, we become terribly attached to Jodie, an actress forced to play dog walkers, a disoriented but combative thirty-something who commits body and soul to a journey that will allow her to reconcile with her origins. “My life is a fable. They all are, of course. But the degree of fiction varies.”
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