Western

"By Western, I mean a place in life where you are going to stake your life on a decision."

It is to this eternal logic of the West that Alexis Zagner, "the face of the century", surrenders, driven by the intuition of a danger. A renowned actor who was supposed to play Dom Juan, he abruptly abandons the mythical role and leaves the city like cowboys – those who fear the law and seek to melt their fear in the desert.

What did he do to fear the era that consecrated him? And what does he hope to discover in the west of the country?

Not this woman, Aurore, who stops him in the middle of his run and seems to have nothing better to do than to hold back the fugitive and unravel his secret.

While a media storm rises in Alexis' sillage , a sensual face-to-face ensues between these two exiles who have returned from everything, and especially from love, which disarms and frightens them.

In this galloping novel carried by a dazzling writing, Maria Pourchet delivers, with a sense of humour commensurate with her sense of tragedy, a profound reflection on our time, its violence, its vulnerability, its difficult relationship with freedom and the place it can still leave to the language of love.

"The Calamity Jane of style is back! She wasn't done with love after Fire. So here's Western! Chloé, an executive with a bullshit job, fled Paris with her son for the West, the Lot. Alexis, a successful comedian, a well-known and recognized seducer, was about to play Dom Juan but decided to run away from his commitments and a dirty record on his buttocks. The two are going to find each other because in the West... Nothing new, a man and a woman will talk to each other, please each other, maybe save each other. But after #metoo, what is the language of love, how do women deal with men and vice versa, how do we love each other, how can it still work in a society hungry for morality, which loves buzz, clashes? Pourchet unsheathes his words, his devastating humour and his formulas faster than his shadow: it fuses, it sulphates, it whistles, it knocks to the ground, it gallops... It's wide shots of the time but also close-ups of the looks. It's dazzling and... ruthless (you got the ref? the ref?!)! ♥️♥️♥️ Anne-Céline" We will have the pleasure of welcoming Maria Pourchet Friday, December 1, 2023 at 7 p.m. For a meeting followed by a signing session Registration required: evenement@athenaeum.com