Description

A dilapidated rooming house at St-Tropez on the French Riviera, inhabited in the off-season, when rates are low and tenants scarce, by writers, artists, and other ne´er do-wells.
Meet, among others, Plessi Toussaint, one of France´s most infamous literary figures, winner of the coveted Prix Médici, author of such scurrilous books as Crédillon, Condamné, and Magnéto; Yvette Chanteloup, who gives clients more than strawberries in the back room of her waffle shop; her mysterious cousin, Iseult Plonevez, the author´s muse, who fed her husband to the pigs; Dora and Polly, Irish expatriates; Honoré Velmandois, defrocked Sorbonne professor; Lise Escarène, married novelist and party-girl, with whom the author falls madly in love. Monsieur Nemours, concierge of Filles du Soleil; and meet Umberto, the bus driver; Madame Ste-Foy, tour guide on a pilgrimage to Rome; Marius, Baptiste and Antoine, waiters at le Gorille, a waterfront bar; meet the narrator, a struggling, misguided writer and Plessi Toussaint´s protégé, who, while briefly intimidated by these misfits and party animals, eventually fits right in.