Cohn-Bendit on TV. Intelligent, cunning, devious, has the memory of everything he has ever read; impertinent; good, rapid speaker; wraps up his opponents ( a trio of middle-aged newsmen). He has the ruthlessness of someone unable to put himself in another’s place.

– Mavis Gallant

How does Mavis get away with writing sentences like this? Describing so much with so few words. Incomplete sentences my elementary school teachers would say.

Read a few pages of the Paris Notebook and you’ll realize where the inspiration for the French Dispatch came from. Not only the Lucinda Krementz part. The entire film!

Even the typeface at the top of the pages and chapter beginnings will look familiar.

Gallant, Mavis. Paris Notebooks: Essays & Reviews. United States, David R. Godine Publisher, 2023. p. 19