One night in a Parisian nightclub and the aftermath of a marriage provide the stories for these two novels by Frederic Beigbeder, award-winning author of ‘Windows on the World’. In ‘Holiday in a Coma’, Marc Marronnier, a shallow, superficial, rich Parisian who works as an advertising executive, is invited by his old friend to the opening of a new nightclub called The Shitter (a satirical take on the famous Paris nightclub Les Bains Douche). Taking place over a single unforgettable night, the novel documents everything from the pit-bull bouncer on the door, to the drugs, cocktails and wannabes who frequent the club, and Marc’s attempts to seduce a catwalk model – any one will do. A catalogue of degeneracy, drugs, sex and decibels, ‘Holiday in a Coma’ is written with a fury and passion that reflect the author's own relationship with a world and he both loves and loathes. In ‘Love Lasts Three Years’, Marc Marronnier has just been divorced and – shallow opportunist that he is – has decided to write a book about it. He has a theory that love lasts no more than three years, and here – recounting the highs and lows of his marriage and taking us through brash nightclubs, vainglorious offices and soulless designer apartments – he brings to bear the theoretical and the empirical to prove his point. Both frightening and funny, the book reads like a diary: sometimes tender and real, sometimes fantastical and cruel, peppered with Beigbeder’s acerbic one-liners and trademark wit.
Author
Beigbeder was born into a privileged family in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. His mother, Christine de Chasteigner, is a translator of mawkish novels (Barbara Cartland et al.); his father, Jean-Michel Beigbeder, is a headhunter. He studied at the Lycée Montaigne and Louis-le-Grand, and later at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. Upon graduation at the at the age of 24, began work as an advertising executive, author, broadcaster, publisher, and dilettante. In 1994, Beigbeder founded the "Prix de Flore", which takes its name from the famous and plush Café de Flore in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The prize is awarded annually to a promising young French author. Vincent Ravalec, Jacques A. Bertrand, Michel Houellebecq are among those who have won the prize. In 2004, the tenth anniversary of the prize, it was awarded to the only American to ever receive it, Bruce Benderson. Two of Beigbeder's novels, 99 Francs (Jan Kounen, 2007) and L'amour dure trois ans (Beigbeder, 2011), have been adapted for the cinema. In 2002, he presented the TV talk show "Hypershow" on French channel Canal+, co-presented with Jonathan Lambert, Sabine Crossen and Henda. That year he also advised French Communist Party candidate Robert Hue in the presidential election. He worked for a few years as a publisher for Flammarion. He left Flammarion in 2006. In May 2007 he spent time in the United States to shoot a film about the reclusive American author, J.D. Salinger.
