Playboy

At the age of forty-three, the narrator abandons her marriage, her apartment, and her successful legal career as a public defender to re-emerge as an out lesbian and a writer.

In a series of short, sharp vignettes, the narrator describes her first female lovers—a married woman fifteen years older than her, a model ten years her junior—punctuated by encounters with her ex-husband, her father, and her son.

Looking at the world through fresh eyes, she questions everything that once lay beneath the surface of her well-managed life. Unburdened by marital and familial obligations, a new woman emerges, free to examine gender and marriage, selfishness and sacrifice, money and family, even the privilege inherent in her downward mobility.

A compelling chronicle of transgression, Playboy is Constance Debré's unflinching account of new bachelorhood. Laconic, aggressive, and radically truthful, she chronicles the process that made her one of the most important French writers today.

Translated by Holly James.