Uptight women, Chanel suits, fluffy little handbag dogs?

I went to the Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair in April 2024, looking for options for self-publishing. Meandering through the stalls, I spotted a book with a jacket that looked like the flag of Monaco; red strip at the top, white strip at the bottom. On closer inspection, I discovered it was a novella titled Monaco, by Juliet Jacques. Well, I know a bit about the Principality, so of course I bought the book.

It's a one-sided epistolary novella, a series of emails written by sergeant-rock to an ex-partner. The relationship has recently ended and we're told that "My therapist told me to take a break". So to mend a broken heart and to capture the ""atmosphere" of the place in the run-up to the Grand Prix", sergeant-rock heads to Monaco for a week.

The emails describe places to visit and people associated with Monaco. Photographs are included too. I recognized the weirdness of going to a place on your own, for a holiday or for work, and how lonely it can be, how difficult to talk to strangers. I felt sorry for sergeant-rock and wanted to advise, "just stop communicating with your ex," who never replies. As for Monaco, the place, it was a good attempt, as my old English teacher would say, at portraying its oddness. But one week can only give you a superficial view, the one that everyone expects and sees, "uptight women in their Chanel suits with their fluffy little handbag dogs." The book would however make a nice travel companion if you're thinking of visiting the Principality yourself.