This is one of those novels I feel like I was seeing a lot about over the past few months, so I was pretty intrigued when it came up in my book club. Broadly about a woman and her adult son, and their cat, it went in directions I never really expected. Frances Price, born rich and married rich, spends the last of her fortune, despite multiple warnings by her accountant. Her adult son Malcom has failed to launch, and fails to hold down much of anything as he maintains an odd loyalty to his mother. And then Small Frank the cat, who Frances believes hosts her dead husband’s soul, seems precocious, but still just a cat. 

They escape from New York to Paris, using the rest of their money, and ultimately living in a friend’s second home for free. There, Frances hatches a plan, Small Frank runs away, and Malcom continues to just drift. Eventually, they attract a whole host of folk -- the odds and ends of society, as they seek to find Small Frank once more. 

I think this book was witty and had interesting characters, but ultimately, might have been better reading if I had been looking for wry observations of the upper class. I recently decided to go on a sci-fi/fantasy kick, and found it hard to stay engaged to this story for more than a few pages at a time. Fortunately, it has very short chapters which made picking up and putting down the book very easy. Overall, I thought the book had interesting people, but was maybe more character driven than I needed right now.