French Exit

“Now, so many years later, Joan was the only one Frances could be herself with, though this isn’t accurately stated since it wasn’t as if Frances suddenly unleashed her hidden being once Joan arrived. Let it be said instead that she did, in Joan’s company, become a person she was only with Joan—a person she liked becoming. Joan had many friends, but beyond Malcolm, Frances had only one Joan.”

Frances’s isolation is evident here; even with her closest friend, she admits to not being her true self but rather another version of herself, the one that she enjoys being. Frances’s character is developed here as both lonely and reserved, along with the implication that she doesn’t like her true self, as she presents an alternate version of herself even with her closest friend. In addition, by using a minimalist writing style in the novel, Patrick deWitt emphasizes Frances’s loneliness with blunt statements.

“Susan’s eyes were the color of honey; it hurt Malcolm to look at them, so he didn’t. She watched him disappearing in his seat and wished to hit him, kiss him.”

This short quote sums up both the state of Malcolm and Susan’s relationship, and their individual essential issues with that relationship. Throughout the novel, Malcolm repeatedly refuses to engage with anything that has the power to hurt him, or even make him uncomfortable. Susan is caught in the position of feeling sympathy for Malcolm, and understanding the origins of his defenses, but also realizing that she can’t do anything to bridge the gap he so intentionally creates between them.

“Mr. Baker couldn’t rid himself of the notion that ruin was the object of the game for Frances. But was she herself aware of it? That is, was she perhaps attempting to distance herself from what could be considered dirty money? For what his opinion was worth, he thought her motivation was not linked to morality, but something smaller, something more personal, and bitterer.”

Mr. Baker has been watching Frances deliberately fritter her fortune away for years but is unable to understand her motive. While he attributes it, possibly, to the money’s source (Franklin’s morally bankrupt law practice), he comes closer to the truth when he speculates about ruin.