By Juliet Jacques.
The following is an extract from Monaco (Toothgrinder Press, 2023).
From: sergeant-rock@gmail.com
To: robinsonrj191@gmail.com
Date: 21 April 2022, 23:18
Subject: La Solitude
Darling,
I didn’t do any research on Monaco before I came here. It’s so small and I figured anyone interesting would’ve gone to France and . . . that’s true, but I still found some traces of fascinating people who grew up here, as well as a few who moved here because they were tax exiles, gamblers, hedonists, fraudsters or whatever. (There’s an Erich von Stroheim film about this called Foolish Wives, but they recreated the whole of Monte-Carlo in Hollywood, focusing on the casino, I’ll watch it when I get home…).
This bust caught my eye when I first got here, and as soon as I saw ‘musicien-poète’, I wanted to know who he was. I found a Best of Léo Ferré on YouTube and loved it. I was expecting something like Serge Gainsbourg, just because Ferré’s also a French (or Monégasque, as they call people from here) singer from the 60s. It’s strangely light yet intense at the same time, he flits between tightly controlled piano playing or menacing talking and absolutely hammering the keys and shouting over an operatic backing chorus. I relate to him a lot, I wish I had an outlet like that where I could just let go and not have to put up with bullshit from my housemates, fake-left fuckboys on Hinge, all the Tories and Lib Dems I meet through work… The compilation had a lot of live tracks and his audience just go wild at the end of every chanson. I put it on my phone and listened to him all day as I walked around, it felt like an appropriate soundtrack. (Maybe it’ll help with my French, just a little bit…).
I’m doing the same kind of exploring as when we went away together, galleries and museums, looking out for statues and monuments, public art and graffiti. Monaco’s far weirder than I expected, though. I never imagined I’d come here, and I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I think I like it — or at least I don’t hate it. There are stupid boards everywhere saying shit like ‘Monaco — Land of Ahead Thinkers’ and obviously the yacht club can fuck off, but some of it is kind of funny: I saw this ludicrous poster with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, the Monopoly Man, Bugs Bunny and Jessica Rabbit playing poker by the casino, I couldn’t tell if it was shit art or just an annoying advert. Of course, the most straightforward adverts for Gucci or superyacht insurance or banks give a better measure of who lives and works here, but I haven’t met anyone besides Jean-Philippe, and I’ve only said a few words to him, so I’ve just been walking around with the camera.
I thought it’d be interesting to see the Prince’s Palace (I’d never dream of doing the same in London) but it was closed for refurbishment, so I went to the churches in the old town. I had to queue up to see Princess Grace’s grave in St Nicholas Cathedral, obviously all the tourists want to see that. (I was more taken by Le Christ mort by a sculptor called François Bosio — I’ve sent you a picture, Bosio is as big a deal as Ferré here, I think.) Her grave is simple and dignified, and that’s something I noticed: when I end up around rich people in London, usually through the art world, they’re so fucking gauche, tacky nouveau riche bastards, here at least things are more tasteful and there’s some faded fin-de-siècle glamour. Maybe it’s just me but there’s a melancholy running through the Principality, partly because Rainier III turned it into a big shrine to Grace Kelly: there’s a rose garden and theatre named after her, several statues, and this Parcours Princesse Grace of their marriage, her meeting the Ballets Russes, helping sick little children, etc. Maybe that’s why there’s no monument to Senna: they were all mourning the Princess. (I don’t know how organic that is. I guess it’s led from the top rather than being like those people flocking to Kensington Palace after Diana died, not least as there are so few Monégasques, but the whole Grace Kelly funeral is on YouTube if you want to judge for yourself.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Jacques is a writer and filmmaker based in London. She has published four books: Rayner Heppenstall: A Critical Study (Dalkey Archive, 2007); Trans: A Memoir (Verso, 2015); a volume of short stories, Variations (Influx Press, 2021); and Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021 (Cipher Press, 2022). Her fifth, a novella entitled Monaco, is published by Toothgrinder Press.
