In this prequel to the critical sensation Love Me Tender, Constance Debré breaks free from conformity to live her life as a butch lesbian

'Defiant, probing, hot' Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes At the age of forty-three, the narrator abandons her marriage, her apartment and her successful legal career as a public defender to re-emerge as an out lesbian and a writer. In a series of short, sharp vignettes, the narrator describes her first female lovers - a married woman fifteen years older than her, a model ten years her junior - punctuated by encounters with her ex-husband, her father and her son. Looking at the world through fresh eyes, she questions everything that once lay beneath the surface of her well-managed life. Unburdened by marital and familial obligations, a new woman emerges, free to examine gender and marriage, selfishness and sacrifice, money and family, even the privilege inherent in her downward mobility. A compelling chronicle of transgression, Playboy is Constance Debré's unflinching account of new bachelorhood. Laconic, aggressive and radically truthful, she chronicles the process that made her one of the most important French writers today. Translated by Holly James

"Challenging yet empowering ... refreshing" - The New York Times

"At once cavernous and concise ... it is sharply observed, cool, and unbiased in its assessment of human folly." - New York Review of Books

"A continued, decisive force of writing" - Irish Times

"Shocking for its psychologically blank, bare-knuckle swagger" - Daily Telegraph

"You can't help but think of her work falling in the tradition of Annie Ernaux, just edgier. Her prose is gorgeously spare and practical" - Irish Independent

"Fascinating ... Playboy is a story of bravery and ultimate personal freedom, and the costs that come with it" - Buzz Magazine

"Bold and brash and at the same time quietly controlled ... Debré is brilliantly deadpan" - Spectator

"Her scalpel-like stylistic approach makes the rebellious content of Debré's novels resonate all the more" - Prospect

"This is the most addictive book I've read since I can remember... Debré's observations about how men see women, and how she now sees women in turn, as a lesbian, are brutal and revelatory. Read the earth-shatteringly emotional Love Me Tender next, where Debré fights to keep custody of her young son post-divorce, despite her ex-husband's best efforts" - AnOther Magazine

"In Playboy, the French novelist Constance Debré is radical in shucking off not only the trappings of matrimony but also of class" - Financial Times

"Debré's voice is like a diamond drill boring through stone ... that cold sliver of voice, conducting electricity at a high voltage, sending the occasional shower of sparks off the page" - Bookforum

"Tight, present-tense prose ... genuinely inspiring" - Financial Times

"A consideration of metamorphosis, motherhood and sexuality that feels bold and true" - AnOther Magazine