This is the first book by French author Constance Debré, translated into English by Holly James. Debré’s follow-up to Playboy, Love Me Tender, was published for the English market late last year, but now the readers can truly begin at the beginning. (There will be a final book, Nom, in this autofiction trilogy that shook the French literary world.)

Playboy reads like a diary of sorts, chronicling the author’s life after her decision, at the age of 43, to abandon her marriage, her career as a solicitor and her bourgeois life in the Parisian upper class. Debré’s prose is sharp like green apples, fresh and direct. There is no place for metaphors or skimming around edges here: it is a compulsive reading.

The result is a fascinating book which documents one person’s reversal of societal roles – from a mother and wife, in a relatively unremarkable heteronormative relationship, to embodying this book’s title, chasing and courting other female lovers. And, in time, to shedding the class privilege in favour of life without many monetary frivolities. Playboy is a story of bravery and ultimate personal freedom, and the costs that come with it.