Ep 713 - Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan

Summary

Podcast Summary: Overdue Episode 713 - Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

Podcast Information:

• Title: Overdue
• Host/Author: Headgum
• Episode: Ep 713 - Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
• Release Date: July 28, 2025
• Description: Overdue explores books you've been meaning to read, tackling a new title each week—from classic literature to obscure plays and quirky children's books.

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1. Introduction to the Episode

Craig Jean Mapel and Andrew kick off the episode by introducing their selection for the week: Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan. They set the tone for an engaging discussion about this mid-century French classic.

Craig (01:12): "Plus, these are books you should have read by now."

2. Overview of Bonjour Tristesse and Françoise Sagan

The hosts delve into the background of Françoise Sagan, affectionately referred to as "Kiki." They discuss her prolific career, noting her as the author of 20 novels, multiple short story collections, plays, and more. Sagan's rapid rise to fame began with the publication of Bonjour Tristesse when she was just 17 years old.

Craig (05:15): "She was the author of 20 novels, three volumes of short stories, nine plays, two biographies, some non-fiction, directed a movie. She's a pretty, like, accomplished lady."

3. Critical Reception and Translation Differences

Andrew and Craig examine the initial critical reception of Bonjour Tristesse, highlighting how it won the Prix des Critiques in 1954 shortly after publication. They discuss the controversy stirred by the book, particularly with Pope Paul VI labeling it an example of irreligiosity.

They also explore the nuances of the book's translation from French to English, comparing Irene Ash's edition with Heather Lloyd’s uncensored translation. The duo highlights how Ash's version omits certain scandalous lines, making it the more widely available translation.

Craig (09:49): "A dissenting member of the Critics Prize jury fretted that Bonjour Tristesse would, 'deal a fatal blow to the image of young French women in the eyes of foreigners.'"

4. Plot and Themes of Bonjour Tristesse

The hosts provide a detailed synopsis of the novel. Bonjour Tristesse centers on Cécile, a 17-year-old girl vacationing on the French Riviera with her widowed father, Raymond. Their carefree life is disrupted by the arrival of Anne, Raymond's new romantic interest. Anne's presence introduces a sense of order and seriousness that clashes with Raymond and Cécile's laid-back lifestyle.

Key Plot Points:

• Cécile's Relationship with Her Father: Their bond is depicted as "bro-like," emphasizing their mutual understanding and lack of conventional boundaries.

  Andrew (17:13): "Their relationship is very bro-y... it's not incestuous."

• Introduction of Anne: Anne represents stability and challenges the existing dynamic, prompting Cécile to devise a scheme to remove her from their lives.

  Andrew (24:54): "Anne sees them [Raymond and Elsa] together and decides to marry Raymond, upsetting the existing balance."

• Cécile's Manipulative Plan: Collaborating with Cyril and Elsa, Cécile orchestrates events to make Raymond jealous, aiming to restore their carefree existence.

  Andrew (28:03): "They need to pretend to be romancing each other to make Raymond feel old and drive Anne away."

• Tragic Conclusion: The plan culminates in Anne's car accident, leading to her death. The ending leaves ambiguity about whether it was accidental or intentional, reflecting Cécile's internal sorrow.

  Andrew (36:30): "The ambiguity of the ending is that it is plausible that it was not an accident."

5. Character Analysis

Cécile: Portrayed as an unlikable, overindulgent teenager, Cécile's actions drive the narrative. Her lack of introspection and empathy makes her a controversial protagonist.

Craig (44:48): "Cécile... is perhaps one of the most unlikable characters I've ever read."

Raymond: Cécile's father is depicted as a charming, somewhat irresponsible man who indulges both himself and his daughter, embodying the carefree lifestyle that Cécile resists.

Anne: Serving as the catalyst for the story's tension, Anne brings a contrasting sense of purpose and responsibility, challenging the status quo of Cécile and Raymond's lives.

6. Themes and Societal Commentary

The novel explores themes of youthful rebellion, moral ambiguity, and the impact of societal expectations on personal relationships. Cécile's manipulations reflect a resistance to growing up and accepting adult responsibilities, while Anne's presence symbolizes the intrusion of propriety and structure.

Andrew (43:10): "Cécile... enjoys having sex with Cyril, but it's not a deeper connection. It's more about the enjoyment without consequences."

The hosts discuss how the book was both lauded and criticized for challenging traditional notions of female morality and autonomy, especially regarding a young woman's right to seek pleasure without societal penalties.

7. Critical and Public Reception

The discussion highlights the polarized reception of Bonjour Tristesse, with some praising its honest portrayal of adolescent emotions and others condemning its perceived immorality.

Goodreads Reviews:

• Positive Review: Andrew Kelly praises the book as "a lovely psychological gem" that "perfectly depicts what it was like to be smart, rich, and 17 years old in 1954."

  Kelly (44:48): "A delicate, exquisite, admirably honest rendering of Cécile's emotions, whether ugly or sweet."

• Mixed to Negative Reviews: Some reviewers found Cécile's character unrelatable and the novel's lack of deep introspection off-putting.

8. Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Craig and Andrew conclude the episode by reflecting on the enduring relevance of Bonjour Tristesse. They acknowledge the protagonist's flaws but also recognize the novel's contribution to literary discussions about youth and morality.

Andrew (37:37): "The sadness that we are saying hello to... Now I gotta live with this."

They express a guarded appreciation for the book's psychological depth while grappling with their own ambivalence towards Cécile's character.

Notable Quotes

• Cécile on Sorrow:

  "A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow." ([17:13])

• Cécile Reflecting on Her Actions:

  "I thought of Anne, but in a way that made me sit up on my bed with a fast beating heart, telling myself that I was stupid, monstrous..." ([25:08])

• Final Reflection:

  "Only when I'm in bed at dawn listening to the cars passing below in the streets of Paris, my memory betrays me..." ([37:44])

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Overdue Episode 713 offers a comprehensive exploration of Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, balancing plot summary with critical analysis and personal reflections. By dissecting character motivations and societal implications, Craig and Andrew provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of this literary classic.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a Headgum podcast.

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[Craig Jean Mapel]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

[Andrew]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig Jean Mapel.

[Andrew]

Andrew.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh oui, oui. Oh la French podcast.

[Andrew]

I was gonna try not to lean all the way into the ho ho baguette. Kind of like stuff that we sometimes. You could accuse us of doing for this.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

J'.

[Andrew]

Accuse. This episode of our book podcast where every week one of us reads a book that we've never read before and tells the other co host and also you, the listener at home about it. And this week I read Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Francois Sagan?

[Andrew]

Francois Sagan.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, I said Sagan a few weeks ago and that's wrong. It's not like Carl Sagan. Not like Carl Sagan Saigon, but hello Sadness, my old friend, or hello Sorrow. Right. I typed it in my iOS notes and it corrected it to hello, Sorry. So, you know, you could just call this book hello, Sorry. If you wanted.

[Andrew]

Hello Sadness, my old friend. I killed my father's lady friend.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, I know nothing about this book. So if that's a spoiler, I look forward to finding out who knows.

[Andrew]

Oh, it is.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay, great.

[Andrew]

But but not the way you think. How about that?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

But this is like a mid century classic that has. Is just out there. It's got, you know, it had a film adaptation that followed it pretty swiftly. A new one.

[Andrew]

It's one of those, like, came out like a couple of years ago. It's one of those scandalous at the time books.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yes, the 50s were full of those. The war was over and no one knew what to do. So they were scandalized by books all the time. Yeah, that's my armchair assessment.

[Andrew]

But no, usually it was just about, like ladies acting in a way that they were. That was considered unbecoming or something as old as time. Yeah, right.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

But no, I'm excited to hear about it. I love learning about the French.

[Andrew]

I had. Okay, you said that in a way that made it sound like you meant exactly the opposite. But no, I found this on some list of, like, beach reads. Because there is. It is beachy.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Well, it's the French Riviera, right?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. A beach I've never been to. I've never been to France. Never been to a French beach.

[Andrew]

But it ended up, you know, it. Not. Not to bring all. All roads lead to Booth Tarkington on our podcast.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh, dear.

[Andrew]

In the. In the last, like 100 episodes or so. And so, you know, like Alice Adams, it is kind of a. A book that is about the lives of the sort of idle upper middle class.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I've read a few of those. That was the didion that I read as well. That was a little more Hollywood coded. Speaking of all roads lead to Andrew, I did find a podcast comparing the protagonist of this book to Patrick Bateman. There's a couple of books we've read this year that have become the book.

[Andrew]

The only comparison I can make to Patrick Bateman is, is that Cecile is nothing like Patrick Bateman. Literally nothing like. That's. That's ridiculous. But I guess if you wanted to do it for SEO, then you could.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

You could.

[Andrew]

You could. You could. You could say, yeah, just like Patrick Bateman.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Just saying that about everything just to get the TikTok clicks, you know, that's.

[Andrew]

What we're doing for Boots Arkington, obviously.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Obviously. Huge SEO. Let's talk about Francois Sagan. She was born in 1935, passed away in 2004. Was the youngest of three. Her nickname was Kiki. We just call her Kiki.

[Andrew]

You call her Kiki?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Just call her Kiki. Her father was a prosperous industrialist and her mother was from an older landowning family. So when you get to the Cool.

[Andrew]

So they had money.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yes. And her family moved to Paris after World War II. She popped out of a couple of different schools. Her first school that she went to was a convent and she was expelled due to a, quote, lack of deep spirituality. She was.

[Andrew]

I could get kicked out of something because of that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I bet she's expelled from another school for doing pranks. Like, she just seemed like she was not.

[Andrew]

I could also get expelled from something because of that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. And she was admitted to the Sorbonne, the. The Hailed Sorbonne, but she did not graduate. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a.

[Andrew]

She do to what she do to get kicked out of that one?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

She wrote this book.

[Andrew]

I think she doing pranks that were insufficiently religious.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

If writing a book that a pope doesn't like is called a prank. That's what. That's what this is. She's the author of 20 novels, three volumes of short stories, nine plays, two biographies, some non fiction, directed a movie. She's a pretty, like, accomplished lady, though. A lot of it is the, wow, you wrote a book when you were 17. By the time you were 19, it was, you know, people loved it or hated it and everyone was talking about it. And that just set you up for a very particular life that you lived for a while. For a long time after. She, you know, let's just. I'll get into her writing this book because I think it's the best way to do it chronologically. She's at the Sorbonne. She is kind of bored and wanted to see if she could write a novel. Like on a break. She, what if I just spend a few weeks just banging out a novel, see if it's possible.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

She does it. She drops it off at a publisher and the publishers like it. Her parents help her negotiate the contract, including the use of another name. But I've read that that's because of the subject matter of the novel. They didn't want their name on it, and she only had a few minutes to pick something, so she picked Saigon, which is, I think, a reference to a character from Proust. Proust.

[Andrew]

I think Proust.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

A man that really scares me at the prospect of ever covering him for the podcast. That book, as I understand it, is very big. But the something, something time book, lost time.

[Andrew]

It's Proust.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Proust. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine in a while. I know that that's. They talk about Proust in that. But so she writes this very quickly. It is picked up and published. It had a few alternate endings. During its editing process, then comes out, it instantly got notice. Everybody, you know, of course, was either scandalized or very enthused. It's published in English a year later by Irene Ash as the translator, which I think you did read. Right. You read that edition. Great.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's the edition I read the Newer translation from 2013. Do you have the name of the person who did that one?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Heather.

[Andrew]

Heather Lloyd. Heather Lloyd, that translation. So the Irene Ash one edits some stuff out. Some particularly scandalous lines apparently get edited out of this one. And the Lloyd translation is based on the. Based on an uncensored text. But the Ash translation is the one that you can find right now. Like, it's. It's not that the Lloyd one would have been totally impossible to locate, but if you go to buy like a modern paperback edition of this on. In like Barnes and noble or bookshop.org or Amazon or wherever, like, this Irene Ash version is the one that you are going to find. So that's what I ended up reading.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I read a Guardian article from 2014, I think, like, 10 years after her passing by Richard Williams called Francoise Sagan. She did what she wanted. Great name for anything.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

And that. I'll just read this quote. I don't. I can't. I can't vouch for either translation. I didn't read either. So I'm just going to read this. What this man wrote. Readers can judge for themselves whether the short opening sentence of the book's second paragraph is better rendered by ashes or the version that supersedes it. The new translator is working hard to take some of the spring out of the teenage author's step. So just kind of talks a little bit about why there was a new translation. And you're right, like, the. The appeal of restoring a previously censored text is always, you know, admirable, I think, or at least understandable. But it's not the one that people read. At least not.

[Andrew]

Yeah, translation is a. As we talk about all the time. It is. It is complicated. It is more than just literally taking words in French and finding the most literally compatible English equivalent. There's a lot of stuff going on.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

It won the pre day critique in 1954. Literally the same. Like, it was like weeks after it was published. So all, like, right away it wins a prize. You know, it's. It's getting sent across the Atlantic in English. People are losing their minds over this book. Pope Paul VI called it an example of irreligiosity.

[Andrew]

But he's talking about it and he is. He read it, I guess.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

This is also from, you know, from the Guardian. A dissenting member of the Critics Prize, Jersey Fred Jury, fretted that Bonjour Tristas would, quote, deal a fatal blow to the image of young French women in the eyes of foreigners. Don't reward this book. The people might not like our women anymore.

[Andrew]

Now I'm trying to think if I have preconceived notions about French women and if they are, if they, if they match up to anything that happened to this book at all. I don't think so.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

No.

[Andrew]

How would I know? How would I know?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Think so. From the New York Times obituary of Saigon. A professor of French literature in 95 said that these books were, quote, perfectly in accord with a moment of time, the mid-1950s, and well connected with France's literary past. Sagan was a big fan of Camus and other authors of the era. But this is also, you know, it's more rooted in relationships and things like that. But it is not, from my understanding, a very romantic book. Even though, like, people, romance happens, but romance happens. You know, it's the mid-50s.

[Andrew]

It's the-50s, baby.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Like, weird stuff is happening. You know, maybe it doesn't work out. Maybe we're like at a remote emotional remove from the, you know, actions of our characters. Who knows? And so she, you know, follows it up two years later. The success was that book called. It is called A Certain Smile. I don't know how to say that in French. She is like buying sports cars. She's so rich and, and like, you know, successful. She loves sports cars so much. She loved to drive fast. She wasn't like a near fatal crash in her Aston Martin. Of course, she dealt with addiction throughout her entire life. She had one son, she had two marriages and then multiple long term relationships with men and women. She had success with an essay collection in 1984, which was kind of a, like a little comeback for her after a period of people like, yeah, your books are out there and fine. And we haven't really been reading them for a while. Like they're out, you know, you're still doing your thing. But that was one that got coverage in the mid-80s and then kind of the last like 15, 20 years of her life. You know, she's arrested twice for drug charges, there's a tax fraud conviction. It's like a celebrity whose light had long ago dimmed. But because she, like, loomed large in the mid century French literary scene, like, everyone's always interested to know what she's up to or how she's doing even if she's not necessarily, you know, as relevant. What from the wapo obit, they said reviewers became more cautious in their praise for the one time terrible. Although few quibbled with the strengths of her first book. She said, all my life I will continually, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. So that's that kind of idol rich thing that you mentioned earlier, Andrew, that maybe, you know, war on some people. I'm not sure.

[Andrew]

Yeah, not even necessarily like the people who are so astronomically rich that they can launch satellites into space or whatever. But yeah, people who, people who have lots of time to sit around and think about stuff because they don't have. They don't. They are not fighting like day to day for subsistence.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure. You know, the 2024, there was a. There was a 1958 film adaptation that was, you know, lots of people saw it though reviews were mixed. I think the New York Times review was like, this is just as bad as the novel. Very helpful. I'm trying to look up the name of the 2024 director, Durga2Bose. She said of the novel, I think any story told from the POV of a young woman trying to sort through the turmoil of coming of age will always feel modern to me. And I think that is like a pretty good encapsulation of why this book will resonate with people, you know, 50 to 60 years hence and why it spoke to people in that moment. You've got a, like a burgeoning generation coming out of the war that was not, you know, they didn't fight in the war. They're too young for that. And like what is society going to be as they grow up? Like that's the question that I think a lot of post war countries we're dealing with and books like this come out of that. I think so, yeah. Let's talk about the book, Andrew, about the book.

[Andrew]

Let's talk about this book. Bonjour tristess.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Hello.

[Andrew]

Cecile. She's a 17 year old young woman. She hangs out with her dad who is not married. And I think, I think her mom died. It's not really super important what happened to Cecile's mom, but it's just important that she's not around anymore.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Cecile was in Catholic boarding school for a while, but she like withdrew like a couple of years before the action of the, of the novel. And now she just lives with her dad and her dad is A regularly. Her dad, Raymond, is regularly described by her as just a very cool, chill, attractive older man who she loves to hang out with. And other women love to hang out with him, too. And this is the. This is the. You know, this is the template that she learns to live life from, is just this. This sort of silly man who. Who is very attractive and does not ask much of her and is always hanging out with hot young women all the time.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Lest you think that it's. It's going to get weird, though, the book. The book does. Cecil does at one point turn to the camera and be like, this isn't weird. She says, I realize that some people might find complicated motives for this revolt in me. Some might endow me with startling complexes, such as an incestuous love for my father or a morbid passion for Anne, who is a lady friend of his father's who comes around. The action of the book is driven by. But I know the true reasons were the heat, Bergson and Cyril, or rather Cyril's absence. Cyril is a young man who Cecile is hanging out with on this beach vacation that we're on. But, yeah, it's like, I don't. It's. It's not. It's not incestuous.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I don't.

[Andrew]

I don't have any weird feelings about my dad. It's just all this other stuff's happening. It's just hot. And it's all these other people.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I do.

[Andrew]

Why you keep asking. Why do you keep asking questions of that?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Stop it. I know that she is, you know, purportedly a pretty big fan of Camus. And that was a thing that came up when I read the Stranger, where that guy, like, committed murder at one point. And literally the best explanation he could give himself was, it was really hot. Like, really hot on me. It wasn't the alienation from society or racism or anything like that. It was just like, oh, my God, man. So I can't think.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, they have kind of a lightweight, silly life together that they lead.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay. Sounds fun to me.

[Andrew]

But the perspective of the book is someone is telling you Cecile is a version of Cecile is telling you this, who has lived through all of it already, has gotten to the end of events and regrets, things that have happened.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh, she has regrets. A few.

[Andrew]

Okay. She does have a few.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And so, you know, that is the. That is the trist. That is that we are saying bonjour to.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure. All right.

[Andrew]

For the entire length of the book is she said she's sad about something she wishes that the things she was telling us about did not go down the way that they go down. Oh, and you know that the whole time that you're reading the book.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

That's an interesting, like, wait for this shoe to drop kind of way to tell you that there's going to be a shoe dropping. Like it's not a surprise when something breaks bad, I think. I guess at the end, but you don't know. Is she trying to telegraph what it's going to be? Is she trying to keep it hidden?

[Andrew]

No, no, not specifically. She's just. Let me read. What's the first paragraph? A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sorrow. The idea of sorrow has always appealed to me, but now I am almost ashamed of its complete egoism. I have known boredom, regret, and occasionally remorse, but never sorrow. Today envelops me like a silken web, enervating and soft. It sets me apart from everybody else. That summer I was 17 and perfectly happy.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

So Cecile, 17 and perfectly happy, has gone on a vacation to the French Riviera with her dad, Raymond, who is a himbo, and her and Raymond's current girlfriend, who is named Elsa. Like in Frozen.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Like in Frozen. Yeah.

[Andrew]

You know how I'm thinking especially of, like, Sleepless in Seattle, but it's a. It's a character archetype in a rom com where one of the leads is with somebody already at the start of the movie.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But, you know, that's not who they're supposed to end up with because they have some weird, fatal, superficial character. Flawless.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Like they're too much of a dwebo or something.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, Elsa is very. She's in her 20s. She's very young. She's very hot. She's got. She's a redhead, but also she sunburns really easily. And she's not. She's not like, taking to the. To the French Riviera the way that she can't hang. Cecil is. Yeah, she's not. She's not getting a nice. A nice tan and hanging out in the sun. She's getting sunburned and it makes her look kind of silly.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay, so this is a little. Is in parallel with. But less overtly silly than, like, close talkers or, you know, other Seinfeld girlfriend problems.

[Andrew]

Just like, whatever the deal is with, like, a Bill Pullman Paxton character. What's his deal in that movie? He just, like, needs a lot of, like, humidifiers and stuff while he sleeps. He's just like allergic to stuff.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yes. I'm also thinking about the Greg Kinnear character in youn've Got Mail, who I think is supposed to be a little more overtly like, no, thank you. But similarly, like, at the front you're like, well, I mean, it could be fine with this guy maybe. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay. I buy that. Is there any weirdness in the, like the age thing there? You said she's in her 20s. This woman like does that weird Cecil out or anything?

[Andrew]

It doesn't. No, it doesn't weird Cecil out because Cecile is, she's perfectly happy. She just, she gets it, you know, she get. Her dad is hot. You know, he's a daddy, bro. He's not just a father, he's a daddy.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

No.

[Andrew]

And so they hang out. You know, she and her father are peas in a pod, sort of. Like, he doesn't. She is just like failing tests in school and whatever. And he's like, yes, fine, you're. You're young, you'll figure it out.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh, he's a cool dad. Okay.

[Andrew]

He's a cool dad. And they both know that each other are cool and they are just happy to like live these frivolous little lives next to each other. And yeah, it is, it is very bro y their relationship because like I said already, it's not incestuous. It's not weird.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

It's not weird.

[Andrew]

Why would you know that? Because Cecile tells us how not weird it is.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

She's not. It's not weird at all. I'm sure.

[Andrew]

So he and Elsa are there and she is, she is sunburned and she's like. She's obviously not going to go the distance with Raymond because it's not a thing that Raymond is super interested in. And then once and, and Cecile is hanging out with this other, this, this guy who is a few years older than her, a couple years, I think younger than Elsa, but a few years younger than her or older than her. Cyril, who she's just like going out and boating with and exchanging, you know, loving glances with.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And their relationship is going to become physical later. It's not physical yet at this point, but he's just like around and he is, he is besotted with her.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay. All right.

[Andrew]

Then one day this lady named Ann shows up and Anne is age appropriate for Raymond. She's kind of a middle aged woman, like a friend of the family. And she was a, she was a, like a mentor and a comforting presence for Cecile when she withdraws from this Boarding school.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

She is, she is a. She's very, she's very pretty. But she, her, her life is one of like she, she has like a direction. She has like a. She. She imposes order on things. She's not just like doing this silly float around layabout lifestyle that Raymond and Cecile are all about.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Raymond has strong feelings for Anne, obviously, and they are all, you know, they're hanging out together for a little bit. But eventually Elsa kind of gets the. Gets the message that Raymond's interest has. Has wandered onto, onto Anne. And Elsa leaves. And then Raymond and Anne decide that they are going to get married.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

And after that happens, Anne starts to kind of make Cecile do stuff that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Doesn'T seem like Cecile's bag to be told no.

[Andrew]

She doesn't like doing no. So and begins pushing Cecile to like start taking her studies more seriously. You know, you're gonna go to school and you're gonna get a real education. You're not just gonna like fail out of class and be like po boystorfect about it the whole time.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure.

[Andrew]

This is Cecile with the best will in the world. I applied myself to the next lines, but suddenly something arose in me like a storm and threw me onto the bed. I thought of Cyril waiting for me down in the golden cove of the gently swaying boat, of the taste of our kisses. And I thought of Anne, but in a way that made me sit up on my bed with a fast beating heart, telling myself that I was stupid, monstrous, nothing but a lazy, spoiled child and had no right to have such thoughts. But just the same, in spite of myself, I went on thinking that she was a danger to me and that I must get rid of her. I thought of the dinner I endured with clenched teeth, tortured by a feeling of resentment for which I despised and ridiculed myself. Yes, it was this I held against Ann. She kept me from liking myself. I, who was naturally meant for happiness and gaiety, had been forced by her into self criticism and a guilty conscience unaccustomed to introspection. I was completely lost. And what good did she do me? I took stock. She wanted my father. She had got him. She would gradually turn us into the husband and stepdaughter of Anne Larson. That is to say, she would turn us into two civilized, well behaved and contented persons. And this is. This is, this is. This can't happen.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

It's boring, can't be allowed to occur.

[Andrew]

Lady can't come into my life and make me think about myself and make Me stop hanging out and having a good time with my bro dad.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Who's gonna. This lady's gonna make my dad uncool, civilized, make my dad button up his shirt. He's just got unbuttoned all the way to the belly button, I'm sure.

[Andrew]

And at one point, you know, Ann does lay out the. The counterpoint to this, which is like, I've known guys like your dad, and when they stop being youngish and handsome and they stop being able to like, hold their drink as much, they get really sad and they have to pay for sex. And it's like a bad life that they have. It's. There is a, there's a, there's a time limit on this thing that he is doing. But. Yeah. And so Cecile, she resolves this. This can't be born. I have to. I have to make this. I have to make this not happen.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

This thing. Oh, this is fun. Like a reverse parent trap.

[Andrew]

A parent exoneration. Yeah. So she hatches this plan with Elsa, who is still kind of hanging around and still hot, and with Cyril, who she is sleeping with and who will do kind of anything for her at this point. Who she, Cecil, is sleeping with is. She tells Cyril and Elsa that they need to pretend to be romancing each other.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Uh huh.

[Andrew]

Uh huh. And they need to do this in a way that Raymond notices, because Cecile knows that if Raymond sees Elsa and Cyril together and they are like, you know, they are two young and age appropriate people who are hanging out with each other, and he. It will make him feel old and it will make him feel like he needs to prove something by getting Elsa to come back. And this in turn will make Ann go away and will make it so that the good times can keep on.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Rolling as this scheme is coming together. Andrew, are you in your head hearing like kind of like goofy hijink music or are you hearing like kind of indie movie? These people are manipulating each other and it's sad music.

[Andrew]

Like, it's more. It's more the second one. Like, I definitely. There's definitely a version of the, of the book where like, Cyril and Elsa get together and are happy and then it just leaves Raymond and Cecile both sort of perplexed and unhappy. Or maybe just the seal because Raymond and Anne would stay together and it would just be this young, this 17 year old who doesn't understand anything, who ends up being the butt of the joke.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Okay, that's not really how it operates.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay, sure. It does sound like it's more French. Than that to be.

[Andrew]

To be pretty broad break down for me. What you mean when you say that?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Well, just that it is not like this is not a Hallmark movie rom com. This is like. No, it is what is going. Something unfortunate is going to happen. This was already told to us that something unfortunate is going to happen.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It was laid out up front, you know that there were bad feelings involved.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. So that when we see this start to take shape, we know that it is or. Or maybe we are, you know, meant to. To anticipate something not working out and it not being fun for people when it happens.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And there are like the meat. There's a big part of the book in the middle that is just Cecile and Anne sort of interacting with each other. With each other and like for a little while coming to a truce. Like they go to. To have dinner with a couple of Raymond's like friends. One. One guy who's even sillier than Raymond is. And his wife who nobody likes. And. And his wife who nobody likes keeps like trying to embarrass Cecile but she gets a little too drunk and keeps saying like perfectly snarky cutting things to her. And in that moment, you know, she's like, well maybe this thing with my dad and with Anne wouldn't be so, so bad. But then you know, other things happen that make Cecile think. Think about herself with some introspection and be. You know, be unsatisfied with herself. And she does not like that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

So Anne just needs to get out of here.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

It's not, it's not a long book, but I'm just. That's a. That's a big chunk of the middle of it is just Cecile first kind of liking this. You know, she. She likes Ann, she looks up to Anne, she likes her dad. She can see circumstances where it would be good for. For him to settle down a little bit. But. But yeah, she just doesn't. She doesn't like the version of both of them that. That comes out of this relationship in her head.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

A clarifying question that sure maybe may have been a given. It's not. Ann is still of their like social circle and stuff. Right. Like it's not okay because I. I think there's another version of this story that. That could happen where it's. Anne is maybe a bit more working class necessarily, but is just comes from a different background or something.

[Andrew]

She's somebody who they both had like a pre established relationship with. She's not, she's not somebody like there's another. There's also another version of the story where Anne is like the latest. Just the latest person to come.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yes.

[Andrew]

To come in with. With Raymond, as opposed to a very.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Specific relationship, which it sounds.

[Andrew]

Yeah, she was. And she, you know, maybe she's different from like the, the 20 something little people who Raymond usually brings home. And that's what gets Cecile all, all worked up. But no, it's. It's the. Their shared history with her makes the relationship more like serious, I think.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Cecil makes it maybe easier to. To see what their life would be if they were both sort of reordering their lives around this, this woman who's sort of a force of nature.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, I'm just interested in. Like, this was written by a 17 year old girl who was, you know, in circumstances similar to the narrator. And what is her relationship to older women in her social circle who maybe have a keener sense of what they want to do in their lives. And she's like, I don't know what I want to do. I'm stuck at the Sorbonne. I'm gonna write a novel and I have a lot of, you know, probably a lot of feelings about authority figures and we'll see what happens. So.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that, you know, that stuff is there to grab onto and to project things onto, but. Okay, I don't know enough about the.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.

[Andrew]

Background of Kiki.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

How does, how does the scheme progress?

[Andrew]

This. It takes a little while to work, but.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh, that implies that it does do something though.

[Andrew]

But it does work. It takes a little bit before Raymond actually sees Cyril and Elsa together. He does see them eventually, and it does have the desired effect where he's like, well, I don't know, I could, but I could get, I could get her back. It's basically his reaction. Yeah, okay, I could, but I could still. I could still hit that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Cool. Cool.

[Andrew]

And then he and Elsa again. This is not a version where. Where Elsa and Cyril realize that they have more in common than either of them do with the other, you know, potential romance interests that they're talking to in the book. And they fall in love and they lose interest in the scheme and they just leave Cecile holding the bag. That's not the thing that happens, El. Elsa does definitely want to get back with Raymond.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And he does get back with Raymond. Oh, she does, she does get back with Raymond. And. Yeah, they just kind of like sleep together outdoors in a place where Anne can see or just they. This may have been one of the things that was cut, I'm not sure, but.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

But they're.

[Andrew]

Anne saw something, okay? And Raymond is like. And. And they're together in the woods and Raymond is. Is. He's got, like, pine needles on a suit that he's. That he's wiping off when. And so, like, oh, they were on.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

They were on la la.

[Andrew]

Rolling around in the pine needles. Oh, no. But Ann sees this and Anne gets really upset because she thought that she was going to marry this guy and he was going to settle down with her. And she gets in the car and drives off. And Cecil, the entire time Anne is getting in the car, is like, apologizing for something and telling Anne to. To come back because she regrets what she is. She's done already. She regrets hurting this woman. She did not think Anne is a. Is a pretty, like, serious, placid person. I think Cecile thought that she would take it more stoically and not be, like, as personally affected by it. But of course Anne is personally affected by it, and Cecile feels bad. So she and her father sit around for a little while feeling bad, and then they start. They're like, well, we got it. We gotta get Ann back. And so they start, right? They both start writing these letters, each of them. And Cecile, by the. By the time Cecile is done with her letter, she's like, I wrote such a perfect letter that I just knew that it would get these two crazy kids back together. And then a phone call comes in and it turns out that Ann has been in a. In a car accident in a very, like, a dangerous little part of the road, that there have been like six other accidents on this season and she is. She has died.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

And the. The ambiguity of the ending is that it is. It is plausible that it was an accident.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

True. Just truly an accident.

[Andrew]

Truly an accident. But Cecile is pretty sure, and I think the reader is meant to take away, that it was not an accident. It was an intentional.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And that Anne decided to take her own life after, you know, being. Being shut down by Raymond as a result of Cecile's scheme.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

So they, you know, they go to a funeral, they're sad for a little bit, and then, like, eventually they start kind of getting back to their frivolous little, little lives. Like, doing. You know, they are living together. They're off having their own little affairs and telling each other about them and being bros again. But Cecile knows or believes that she did this bad thing to this woman who didn't really do anything. Wrong to her other than like asking her to maybe consider making something of hers.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. What a. What a.

[Andrew]

Realizing a little bit. But like that's the. That's the end of the book. That's the sadness that we are saying hello to. Oh boy, man. Now I got. Now I gotta live with this. Do you.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Throughout the book. Are you.

[Andrew]

Let me read the last little.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, please, please, please, please. Then I'll ask my question.

[Andrew]

Only when I'm in bed at dawn listening to the cars passing below in the streets of Paris, my memory betrays me. That summer returns to me with all his memories. Anne. Anne. I repeat over and over again. Softly in the darkness. Something rises in me that I call to by name with closed eyes. Bonjour Tristesse.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

That's the title card at the end.

[Andrew]

That's the title card at the end.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

So this is the original. I know what you did last summer. I know what I did last summer. Do you get. I like that ending because I get a. It actually speaks to my question because it, it's like a little like portrait of this woman looking back. Are there any bits throughout the novel where you're getting a sense of who she is later in life? Or is that not what the novel's up to?

[Andrew]

That's not. I don't think that the, like the perspective that you're hearing it from is somebody who all this stuff has happened to. But it's not. You're not hearing about it like, oh, you know, my dad got old and died and I. I got old and I became.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I saw that man later.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Or like I got old and I became. I repented of my. Of my silly ways. Like she's, she and Raymond are both still very much the people who they are.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

At the beginning of the novel. There's just this other possibility that's now been like foreclosed upon by her little scheme that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure.

[Andrew]

That she did.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So she, she has grown up in that she is. There's a little passage where she's talking about like the first playing some of these people off each other is like the first time that she's really like opened up somebody's brain and like tried to manipulate them in, you know, in, in a way.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Uh huh.

[Andrew]

And that, that is a like a moment of growing up for her. A moment of like transitioning to adulthood.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But you're not really interacting with a version of her that's like, you know, much older than the version that the events of the book happened.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure.

[Andrew]

No, not really.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay, okay, okay. Can you talk a little bit more about the serial stuff and as much as you had any reactions to it? Because the thing that oddly, I guess to me, Saigon doesn't really, you know, maybe she doesn't want to spoil her own book. But like in the quotes about, like, why it was received and why, like either both well or poorly by critics at the time, Sagan says it was inconceivable that a young girl of 17 or 18 should make love without being in love with a boy of her own age and not be punished for it. People couldn't tolerate the idea that the girl should not fall madly in love with the boy and not be pregnant by the end of the summer. It was unacceptable too, that a young girl should have the right to use her body as she will and derive pleasure from it without incurring a penalty. To me, like, that's a little. That's way more specific than the folks who are, like, it spoke to this. Like, you know, we had a notion of what French femininity was, and then we have this young girl who is, you know, doing things that maybe we wouldn't. Maybe we don't say amoral, but at least isn't like a upstanding person or a tragic one.

[Andrew]

Not like conforming to a specific, more traditional idea of what morality is.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

I mean, that's. That's another point of friction between Cecile and Anne is that Anne is talking about her hanging out with Cyril and being like, yeah, when you do stuff like this, women end up in the hospital.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

The implication is women end up in the hospital having a procedure to.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

To. To become. Not pregnant anymore.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's like Cecile likes. Likes having sex with. With Cyril. Like she, she. And she enjoys it. But yeah, like. Like you said, it is not. It is not like a deeper. It's not a deeper thing. Like she can. She can see herself with him, I guess, like, like long term. But it's mostly just like a thing that she enjoys going and doing. And so she goes and she does it. But what she is mad, what she is like sad and upset about at the end of the book is not like, oh, Cyril, my beloved. Like, once Cyril has accomplished his mission in, like being seen by Raymond with Elsa, she's kind of a non. Factor after that.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Like, Raymond is. Raymond is jealous of him because he's a young man. But we don't know anything about how Cyril responds to any of these events after her because he's just not important enough in the Character.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

That's fine.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay. The other thing, I did find this other quote where she expanded upon maybe what people couldn't accept about this girl. This was from the New York Times obituary. This is. This basically just goes to your comments on the bro code relationship that they have. She added that people couldn't accept that this girl, quote, should know about her father's love affairs, discuss them with him and thereby reach a kind of complicity with him on subjects that had until then been taboo between parents and children. I do think, like we encounter this in books of this era and I think books of the turn of the 20th century where.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Just talking about adultery in a, in a frank way whatsoever.

[Andrew]

It's not even adultery because he's not married. It's just like talking about.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Having loose morals.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure. Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Just like going and doing sort of emotion free or like consequence free. The physical things with other human beings is just like bad.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. Why would you ever do it?

[Andrew]

Bad about doing it. Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah. So, yeah, it's just interesting to think about it and I, you know, the, there's another quote I read. There's an article, the literary it girl who continues to fascinate in New York Times from earlier this year, 2025, talks a little bit about the like French people being interested in this, you know, young, talented author, at least for a brief period of time. And that kind of, you know, spurred interest in the book. Anything else on the like teenagerness of it, Andrew, that spoke to you?

[Andrew]

I mean, not really. I could, like, that's kind of it. I'm kind of at the end. No, I know you are. Take away from the, the book because it's just so, it's so short and the, the relationships are so kind of, kind of cut and dry. But okay, you. I, I was given to understand that you had reviews from. Oh, a website that you would. You had read a website where there are reviews of books that, where people rate the books using a star system.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, the reads, they are. No, you're not making this up. The reads, they are good. These are good reads reviews and they have not one, not two, but three stars.

[Andrew]

Oh, three stars, you mean three star goodreads reviews. Oh, that was bad. That was bad. Three star Good Reads review.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh. Little extra spice on that one. Speaking of spice, Shakespeare and spice says Cecile, our narrator is perhaps one of the most unlikable characters I've ever read. She's a 17 year old, overindulgent, pampered child of a father who lives in his own Life rather carefree. One summer vacation, her life is interrupted by a blast from the past and things take a turn for the worse. It doesn't help that this story is recounted by her adult self. And the tone she takes clearly lacks of any empathy toward the troublesome decisions she's made in her younger years. That last point doesn't seem like your read on it.

[Andrew]

What? Having empathy with her self. Self.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Is that how empathy or towards empathy? Maybe not the right word. But yeah, maybe not. Maybe that's, well, triste.

[Andrew]

I don't mean. I don't think that Cecile is like some amazing introspective person, but I found her. I found it sort of relatable to. Not that I live the life of an idol, rich, playboy, but just like, who's this person who's coming into my life and trying to make me feel bad about how I'm living my life?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Fair. True.

[Andrew]

Like, that sucks.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Don't do that to me.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, well, just what it is to be somebody who's careless with other people. That doesn't necessarily mean that you are not worthy of people caring about you.

[Andrew]

Maybe this is shaded by my having experienced Patrick Bateman so recently and for such an extended period.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

They're not a murderer.

[Andrew]

You're like, yeah, I just can't. I can't get on board with, like, the most unlikable protagonist that I've ever encountered in literature. Like, no, she's. She's a young. She's a young woman and she does not have a lot of, like, introspection or perspective on her own decisions because she's a teenager. And that's like, how teenagers act.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I think it's interesting that she couches the novel in an adult look back. But to your point, like, there isn't much more to that perspective other than the tristes at the end.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like how, you know, how adult are we talking? Because it's not adult enough that she is, like, moved on to another phase of her life.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yet there was a. I didn't pull that. The quote. There was a Goodreads review where everyone was like, someone said everyone in this book is a teenager.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's basically true.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Kind of the reverse of like when people didn't like Dawson's Creek because they all talked like, you know, east coast elite adults. And they're like, why are these babies talking like this? That person seemed not to like that. Everybody was just, you know, emotional babies. See, this is not. This does not read to me like a three Star review, Andrew Kelly says. A lovely psychological gem that seems to perfectly depict what it was like to be smart, rich, and 17 years old in 1954. I particularly liked the delicate, exquisite, admirably honest rendering of Cecile's emotions, whether ugly or sweet. I was that age not so very long ago. It isn't hard to remember the truth in what she's saying here. Should be read in one sitting with tea on an unhurried Sunday afternoon.

[Andrew]

Well, some people take it upon themselves to like personally combat grade inflation.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

That's true.

[Andrew]

And as a result, their reviews and the number of stars that they have don't like, sync up with what everybody else is doing. You know what I mean?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yep. Nope. They're like three stars means it's better than three stars.

[Andrew]

Yeah, three, they would say three stars is a passing grade. And I want to leave the four and the five. And everybody on Goodreads, of course, also in their own head has a 10 point system that they're actually using where in the text of the review they're like, this is actually 3.5 or whatever.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

You know, taking us home, walking tragedy. It's pretty simple.

[Andrew]

Is that the name of the person who wrote the review or what they say?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

That's the name of the person about the book.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Quote clean girl aesthetic. Quote Stargirl aesthetic. What if we brought back just being an absolute girl failure? Girl failure is one word.

[Andrew]

It's like girl dinner is.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I think it's like, what if this book was Brat Summer, I think is really what this person.

[Andrew]

We don't talk. We don't talk about Brat Summer anymore.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Talk about it anymore. I did have to look up these, and they have their own wiki and it's from Tick Tock. That's just, of course. Sure. Some of our listeners.

[Andrew]

Every time I hear something that's got like that specific cadence to it, and I've also never heard of it before in my life because there are already ways to say the thing that the person is saying. I just assume it came from Tick Tock.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, but what if. What if we brought back just being an absolute girl failure?

[Andrew]

Andrew, what if we brought it back?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Do you think she's a girl failure? I like, she just heard of for.

[Andrew]

The first time she accomplishes what she set out to do. She just feels bad about it after.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Oh, girl success. I don't know.

[Andrew]

A qualified girl failure for sure.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay, well, this was an Andrew success, I would say, not an annual failure.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Three stars out of five.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

You could decide at home what the grade is what the bell curve looks like. But thanks for telling me about this book, Andrew. I.

[Andrew]

Thanks for listening.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Did it make you want to go to the French Riviera?

[Andrew]

I mean, as long as you could.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Stay away from these people?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to go with these people.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But sure, I'd go. I'd boat. I'd steal kisses on the French Riviera. Yeah.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

You know, eat a baguette.

[Andrew]

You know these kisses and steal a baguette. Steal kisses.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Stealing kisses and baguettes. Get them away from me. If you at home have been to the French Riviera and you want to tell us all about the baguettes you stole, we are. We will not report you. Send us an email. Overdue pod Gmail.com you can find us on social media at Overdue Pod. We're mostly on Instagram and Blue sky posting through it these days. Our theme song is composed by Nick La Ranges. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com's Internet website up there. We do have the schedule for the month of August or we will soon. Craig, you want to hit him with that schedule quick.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

I can do that. Next week I'm reading Jaws by Peter Benchley.

[Andrew]

We're going to need a bigger book.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

No, please, no. Don't make it any bigger. It's like a good size. I'm excited to read it at the length that it is. Following by, followed by Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole, and rounding out the month with Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenbloom. Of course, Andrew can tell you more about some of the bonus episodes that are coming up. I can join Andrew?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Patreon, our Patreon project. Patreon.com overdue podcast. Go there and subscribe. In exchange for cold hard currency, we will give you more content, more of the content that you crave. Weird experiments that we're. I don't know. There's been some life stuff going on, but we're gonna get back to those pretty soon. We have. We have an idea that I think inertia is going to carry us to. Even though I think we both are kind of skeptical that it's a good idea.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

There aren't other ideas. That's the problem.

[Andrew]

You can also get episodes of the Silly Merillion, our current long read project about JRR Tolkien's Silmarillion. We just posted episode two of six up on that feed last week.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yep. You can go back and check out episode zero on the main feed, if you haven't already.

[Andrew]

Yep. Those are coming out once per month. And then also, you may have listened to our Sit Me Baby One More Time episode when it hit the main feed this past month. There's another, what, like seven of those? Eight of those.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Up on the. On the patreon feed. So patreon.com pod you also get access to our Discord community ad free episodes, our newsletter.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And other things.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, those. We're gonna start rolling those Simi Baby ups on the main feed, but they'll stay ad free on Patreon and you can get them right now. Don't wait.

[Andrew]

Yeah, why wait?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

If you are listening to this on the day or so that it comes out, we do have a monthly hangout, quote unquote, July happening at the end of this week on August 1st. So you can tune into that. If you're a Patreon supporter at that tier, we'd love to have you. Yeah.

[Andrew]

All right, everybody, I think that's it, right?

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, that's it. I'm excited to meet a big fish next week.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sharks are fish, I guess.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Yeah, they're the oldest fish.

[Andrew]

Think of the oldest profession. The oldest fish doing the oldest profession. That would be a good dreamworks flick.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Anyway, wait one second. My French. My French teacher in high school once told me that the oldest people who worked in the oldest profession were called les femmes horizontal. And I was like, I don't think that's. Is that real?

[Andrew]

Excellent.

[Craig Jean Mapel]

Interesting.

[Andrew]

I don't think. I don't think that's real. But that's real. All right, bye, sadness. We'll see you next week. Until then, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.