Ideal reading for a nice comfy book shop in Paris. Allen’s first full novel is a tricksy ol’ read. It - unsurprisingly - reads as one of his latter day films, with the classic preoccupations still in place. Some of the observations are re-made from previous works (rewatching Midnight In Paris last night means that the “every era always thinks the previous one was the golden one” observation is pretty much still top of mind), and it is not as tediously an anti-cancel culture screed as one may expect/fear from the synopsis. It, admittedly, tails off a little towards the end, but the prose and dialogue is immensely Allenesque, so what else could you expect?