The Canadian novelist and screenwriter Patrick deWitt is an amusing stylist of the highest order who credits his liking for “inane comedic dialogue” to early and sustained exposure to Monty Python. He has written four novels: Ablutions; The Sisters Brothers, which was made into a film; Undermajordomo Minor; and his latest French Exit, at times “a miniaturist work of howling nihilism” (The New Yorker). DeWitt satirises the wealthy 1%, specifically a Manhattan socialite – infamous for finding the body of her husband in their bedroom and promptly heading to the ski fields for R&R – and her adult son Malcolm as they up sticks for Paris, in relatively impoverished circumstances. deWitt discusses his work and motivations with Paula Morris.

Supported by Canada Council for the Arts.