How to Be a French Girl - Launch and Review
- charlottea232
- Sep 18, 2023
- 2 min read
How To Be a French Girl follows an unhinged narrator, once an art student, now a receptionist, whose existence is dominated by commuting and endless trawling through dating apps. The narrator’s mundane lifestyle radically alters on the arrival of Gustave, a Parisian Sales Director visiting her London office, providing her with the opportunity to re-invent herself. Cleary’s romantic thriller hybrid uses a series of unhinged events and relationships as lenses through which themes including modern hookup culture, womanhood, identity, and creativity are explored.
Last week Weatherglass Books invited me to the launch of Rose Cleary’s debut How to be a French Girl at Burley Fischer Books, a cosy indie bookshop in Haggerston. Shamefully, I arrived late due to terrible traffic for what become my two and a half hour pilgrimage from Stockwell to Dalston. Luckily, on arrival the atmosphere was intimate and welcoming, with Cleary already mid flow in discussion of her debut novel. The idea of ‘autofiction’ was discussed, with Cleary quickly responding that the novel takes inspiration from her real life, but is purely fictional (spoiler alter: Cleary did not chase a man to France, claim to be his wife, and kidnap his teenage daughter…). However, we do see aspects of Cleary’s life fictionalised, such as training as an artist, living in Southend, commuting to an office job in London, and even a romantic fling with a Frenchman. Despite the outrageous events which unfold in the novel’s narrative course, the opening section of the novel sees Cleary vividly paint the mundanity of the protagonist’s everyday life. As a means of relief from her dull reality, the protagonist’s fascination with Gustav catalyses her obsession with adopting a ‘French Girl’ identity, built from Youtube tutorials and cliches, she starts with skincare and clothing, escalating to leaving her job for what she believes will be a new life in Paris.
A particularly prominent tension in the book is the protagonist’s disgust with Javier, a man she meets on a dating app who becomes obsessed with her, behaviour which seems to be mirrored in her obsession with Gustav and subsequent mission to re-brand herself. Indeed, both the protagonist and Javier make unsolicited appearances at the workplaces of their romantic interests. The two parallel relationships allow Cleary to achieve more than a romance narrative, because when reading between the lines, it becomes obvious that the real drivers behind the protagonist’s romantic pursuits are the need to re-create and fulfil her artistic pursuits, whereas Javier is merely a desperate Hinge man. Behind romantic obsession and befriending Nadine, Gustav’s teenage daughter, we see a protagonist desperately struggling with a need to re-claim her artistic identity, which is further emphasised by her jealousy and repulsion at her friend Jenny who creates commercial art for a living.
Cleary’s debut novel is a stunning achievement, tapping into universal, millennial experiences, using deranged romantic obsession as a means to explore identity and the creation of art.
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