What’s it about? It’s about the moon turning to cheese.
No, really, what’s it about? I just told you.
Seriously? Yup.
How the hell do you keep getting away with this? Honestly, it’s a mystery to me too.
What kind of cheese? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
What else should we know about the novel? That it’s kinda not actually a novel.
What does that mean? Each chapter is a day in a lunar cycle. Some chapters feature recurring characters, some don’t. Some go off entirely on their own.
So it’s a short story collection? It’s sort of between a short story collection and a novel. Have you ever heard of the term “fix-up novel?”
Sure, it’s when a previously published series of short stories are collected together and interstitial material is added to provide connectivity and continuity. Like Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. Wow, you nailed that definition perfectly. Yes. It’s like that.
So you wrote a fix-up novel? No.
But — I said it’s like that. These are all new stories, none of which have been published before. It’s not a fix-up, because there was nothing to fix up.
It’s not exactly a novel or a short story collection or a fix-up, so what the hell is it? The term I would use for it is “story cycle.” We’ll probably just end up calling it a novel for marketing purposes, because it’s novel length and people understand the term, but structurally it’s rather a bit different than than your usual novel.
Why did you do it that way? Because that’s what the book needed, and because I could.
So, you’ve written a structurally divergent story cycle about… cheese? Well, a moon made of cheese, but, yes.
You were dropped as a child, weren’t you? I mean, probably.
But: why cheese? Who doesn’t like cheese?
When do we get to see it? It’ll be out March 25, 2025.
Anything else you want us to know? Just that I really like it. There are bits in there that I think are some of the best writing I’ve done, and I think you will be surprised by the places this book goes.
Paul Dallison writes Declassified, a weekly satirical column.
Spare a thought for Louis Sarkozy, the son of former French president and legal trouble enthusiast Nicolas Sarkozy. He has a tough life.
Sarkozy the younger was this week featured in the Financial Times’ How To Spend It section (which no one will ever convince me is not a spoof) and gave a guide to the delights of Washington. It’s ever-so relatable. Here are some of the best bits (incidentally, Louis’ mom Cécilia Attias tweeted out the story and later deleted the tweet for reasons that are unknown, but presumably involve the word cringe) …
In the FT piece, Sarkozy Junior says that he and his wife Natali Husić “were in Washington without a place to live when we discovered the Fairmont Hotel. We negotiated a price and stayed for seven months, a fascinating experience.”
We picked a night to stay at the Fairmont (a random Monday in May) and the cheapest room was $492 (€458) plus taxes and fees. So a seven-month hotel stay (let’s say 212 days)without a negotiated price would be $104,300 plus taxes and fees.
But hotel life, and using the gym at the prestigious Georgetown University, is hungry work. So it’s off to Boulangerie Christophe. You may have heard of that particular bakery, as its boss once presented French President Emmanuel Macron with a baguette (which is the definition of the British expression ‘coals to Newcastle’ or in French, porter de l’eau à la rivière).
Now, at this point you’re thinking “what does Louis Sarkozy actually do?” He’s an author, of course he is. And good news, he’s written a book about Napoleon (out on May 30).
Alas, Sarkozy said: “I loathed Ridley Scott’s disappointing film, a catastrophe! To take my mind off it, I reserved a table at the Michelin-starred Seven Reasons restaurant.”
The food there sounds lovely (the chef’s tasting menu is $160, and another $140 for food and wine pairing) — mind you, there is a special menu called Surprise but you know what you’re getting, so it’s not a surprise at all.
Young Sarkozy is also a keen cook.
“As an experimental cook and passionate meat eater, I frequently source ingredients —ground bison, elk and deer,” he wrote.
Don’t all bison live on the ground? Please tell me there aren’t flying bison!
It’s not all eating and writing masterpieces. There’s also shopping, even though this “is not one of my passions.”
“Recently I acquired a 19th-century candleholder at Kensington Antique Row,” he said, although Kensington Antique Row itself is a modern brick building.
Staying with the shopping theme: “I also couldn’t resist the ring I recently got Natali at Bulgari DC.” FFS.
And finally, there’s Sarkozy Jr.’s views on architecture.
“I’m often concerned that we construct too many parking lot-style buildings these days,” he says. Fair point.
But then he follows up with this genuinely horrific sentence: “If I could buy one building in DC it would be the Library of Congress; I would close it to the public and install a pool table and whisky bar in place of the research desks.”
"But then he follows up with this genuinely horrific sentence: “If I could buy one building in DC it would be the Library of Congress; I would close it to the public and install a pool table and whisky bar in place of the research desks.”"
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