Bye Bye Blondie

In a wrecked, modern version of a romance novel, acclaimed French writer Virginie Despentes pokes at the simultaneous ecstasy and banality of love in an age of psychiatry and punk.

Gloria lives in seething rage, lashing out at everyoneparticularly, against a string of bewildered boyfriendsand douses her pain at the local bar. But when her latest explosion leaves her out on the street, she unexpectedly runs into famed television personality Eric Muir. Incidentally, he’s also her teenage boyfriend, and the one who started it all.

Once upon a time, Gloria and Eric met while institutionalized, and then became a mascot couple for those homeless and high on a noisy mix of drugs, music, and counterculture. Now, twenty years later, Gloria is enamored by youthful love resurrected and determined to immortalize their story by writing a screenplay. Whisked away to Paris, she’s transformed from a provincial loose cannon into an urbane party guest. But navigating life and love isn’t any easier for the middle-aged. Cutting deep to unearth the marriage of institutional violence and heterosexual relationships, Bye Bye Blondie illustrates how young women are continuously dragged down and neglected, and then dangled paltry or false offers of fame in lieu of real, redemptive recognition.

Virginie Despentes is an award-winning author and filmmaker, and a noted French feminist and cultural critic. She is the author of many award-winning books, includingKing Kong Theory, Apocalypse Baby (winner of the 2010 Prix Renaudot), andVernon Subutex (winner of the Anaïs-Nin Prize 2015, Prix Landerneau 2015, and Prix La Coupole 2015). She also co-directed the screen adaptations of her controversial novelsBaise-Moi and Bye Bye Blondie, as well as screenwriter for the film adaptation of her novel,Pretty Things, starring Marion Cotillard.