Grégoire Bouillier was born in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria, and raised in Paris. A former editor of the magazine Science et Vie, he is the author of four works of autobiography, incluidng Report on Myself and Le Dossier M. Having worked as a painter and journalist, he published his first memoir, The Mystery Guest, when he was forty years old.

A London native, Ben Truman lives in New York.

Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood, and How Should a Person Be?

"Somewhere out in the woeful constellation of literary comparison, a lonely satellite drifts between remote stars--Ulysses and Mrs. Dalloway, The Stranger and When Harry Met Sally--beguilingly reflecting the distant light of each. Taped to the bottom of that satellite is this perfect little book, a message to extraterrestrial intelligence that says: We are human, heartbroken, grim, and funny in our despair, yet hopeful and miracle-prone, and some of us are French."

--John Hodgman

"The year's most charming oddity . . . Frank and wry, mad and graceful, Bouillier riffs on his convictions, delusions, and stray theories in [this] French pastry, performing a kind of slapstick philosophy that sheds some light on his soul."

--Troy Patterson, Slate, Best Books of 2006

"[A] sad, funny and vivid new memoir . . . He is an artist of the memoir form . . . Its talky, run-on, breathless tone [is] confiding and endearing . . . As The Mystery Guest beautifully shows -- the power [of] revelation lies entirely within ourselves . . . This memoir--which is shot through with references to the literature that Bouillier loves, to Ulysses and to Ulysses and to Virginia Woolf--gives shape to the question of 'meaning, ' whether it's illusory, whether that matters at all . . . It also gives shape to the painful yet somehow hilarious disjunction that is the residue of a shattered love affair . . . You never know, as they say, what's waiting out there for you; but if you're lucky, you might discover, at least, The Mystery Guest."

--Erica Wagner, The New York Times Book Review

"I woke up the other morning and started to read this marvelous book. I stayed in bed until I had read the last page. I could not for the life of me think of anything in the world I wanted to do but read this book. I am tempted to stay in bed until Grégoire Bouillier writes another one."

--Daniel Handler

"[A] slim and lyrical memoir . . . What Bouillier makes of this simple setup is pure Gallic magic--a mix of hapless obsession, sophisticated abstraction, unearned righteousness and hyperarticulate self-doubt--as he tries to guess the woman's motivations and get a hold of his own feelings. The book's four short parts--phone call, preparation, party and aftermath--are small miracles of Montaigne-like self-exploration. Reading as Bouillier moves through the light and dark of love, through its forms of 'maniacal sublimation' and through its mystery, is arresting."

--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"A mesmerizing, lyrical memoir of loves lost and unexpectedly found . . . Existential angst has rarely been as humorous or as heartbreaking."

--Jake Lamar, People

"Proust in a bottle ... Read it, then set it on your desk. Pick it up again. Be startled. By your own scaled-down reflection most of all."

--Walter Kirn, GQ

"Darkly hilarious . . . an odyssey [that] wends its loopy way toward yes."

--O, the Oprah Magazine

"A refreshingly odd voice . . . With its restless intelligence, The Mystery Guest manages to encompass all the thematic preoccupations of its touchstone, Mrs. Dalloway: time, fate, and the meaning of life. And unlike Ms. Woolf, Bouillier keeps us laughing . . . Bouillier's prose . . . turns every interaction between the narrator and his fellow guests into a comic meditation on the impossibility of communication . . . And then suddenly, in a stunning reversal, Bouillier sets off the depth charges he's quietly been planting throughout the book. In the end, we discover that The Mystery Guest isn't a symphony of missed connections after all, but a kind of hymn to possibility . . . It leaves us moved, even as we shake our heads in disbelief . . . The Mystery Guest [leaves] the reader in a state of grateful intoxication."

--Garth Risk Hallberg, The Millions

"[A] perversely satisfying memoir . . . Anyone whose anxieties tend to buzz in the ear, creating a din that makes it impossible to act unself-consciously, will enjoy this slim volume. Mr. Bouillier is looking back and poking fun at himself, but the events are captured with a raw immediacy, making his parade of humiliations feel fresh and profound."

--Emily Bobrow, New York Observer

Publisher: McNally Editions

Pub date: 2024-05-21

Length: 104 pages