'Defiant, probing, hot' Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes

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

Autorentext

Constance Debré is the author of Love Me Tender, which won the Prix Littéraire des Inrockuptibles in 2020 and Playboy, which won the Prix de la Coupole in 2018. Nom, the final title in this autofiction trilogy, is forthcoming from Serpent's Tail and will be translated by Lauren Elkin.

Holly James is a translator, writer and editor. Her translations have been published by Europa Editions and Semiotext(e).