Monique Escapes : A Novel

When Edouard's mother reveals she is-not for the first time-enduring an abusive relationship, mother and son plot her next steps in what is at once an edge-of-the-seat escape narrative and a meditation on freedom and renewal.

Late one night, Edouard receives a telephone call from his mother. In tears, she tells him that her partner, her first since her abusive marriage with Edouard's father, has been insulting, degrading, and humiliating her. I thought this would be a new life for me and now it's starting all over.

From afar, in Athens, Edouard swiftly sets a plan in place for Monique; the next morning, she departs the apartment she has been sharing with the man. What takes shape over the next weeks, over phone calls and informal Internet tutorials, on video chats and train rides, is a powerful and transformative shared experience for mother and son as they navigate the aftermath of male brutality, confront the limitations of class and society, and lay bare the pain of their past. With characteristic insight into society's underpinnings and oversights, and with exquisite and tender portraiture, Edouard Louis's Monique Escapes is a profound story of a woman, a mother, and a family's search for more.