![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/52915001960_ac1157b875_c.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Juliet Jacques.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The following is an extract from Monaco<\/a><\/em> (Toothgrinder Press, 2023).<\/p>\n From<\/strong>: sergeant-rock@gmail.com Darling,<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t do any research on Monaco before I came here. It\u2019s so small and I figured anyone interesting would\u2019ve gone to France and . . . that\u2019s 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\u2019s an Erich von Stroheim film about this called Foolish Wives<\/em>, but they recreated the whole of Monte-Carlo in Hollywood, focusing on the casino, I\u2019ll watch it when I get home…).<\/p>\n This bust caught my eye when I first got here, and as soon as I saw \u2018musicien-po\u00e8te\u2019, I wanted to know who he was. I found a Best of L\u00e9o Ferr\u00e9<\/em> on YouTube and loved it. I was expecting something like Serge Gainsbourg, just because Ferr\u00e9\u2019s also a French (or Mon\u00e9gasque<\/em>, as they call people from here) singer from the 60s. It\u2019s 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\u2019ll help with my French, just a little bit…).<\/p>\n I\u2019m 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\u2019s far weirder than I expected, though. I never imagined I\u2019d come here, and I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying it, but I think I like it \u2014 or at least I don\u2019t hate it. There are stupid boards everywhere saying shit like \u2018Monaco \u2014 Land of Ahead Thinkers\u2019 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\u2019t 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\u2019t met anyone besides Jean-Philippe, and I\u2019ve only said a few words to him, so I\u2019ve just been walking around with the camera.<\/p>\n I thought it\u2019d be interesting to see the Prince\u2019s Palace (I\u2019d 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\u2019s grave in St Nicholas Cathedral, obviously all the tourists want to see that. (I was more taken by Le Christ mort<\/em> by a sculptor called Fran\u00e7ois Bosio \u2014 I\u2019ve sent you a picture, Bosio is as big a deal as Ferr\u00e9 here, I think.) Her grave is simple and dignified, and that\u2019s something I noticed: when I end up around rich people in London, usually through the art world, they\u2019re so fucking gauche, tacky nouveau riche<\/em> bastards, here at least things are more tasteful and there\u2019s some faded fin-de-si\u00e8cle<\/em> glamour. Maybe it\u2019s just me but there\u2019s a melancholy running through the Principality, partly because Rainier III turned it into a big shrine to Grace Kelly: there\u2019s a rose garden and theatre named after her, several statues, and this Parcours Princesse Grace<\/em> of their marriage, her meeting the Ballets Russes, helping sick little children, etc. Maybe that\u2019s why there\u2019s no monument to Senna: they were all mourning the Princess. (I don\u2019t know how organic that is. I guess it\u2019s led from the top rather than being like those people flocking to Kensington Palace after Diana died, not least as there are so few Mon\u00e9gasques<\/em>, but the whole Grace Kelly funeral is on YouTube if you want to judge for yourself.)<\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> I\u2019m 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\u2019s far weirder than I expected, though. I never imagined I\u2019d come here, and I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying it, but I think I like it \u2014 or at least I don\u2019t hate it. There are stupid boards everywhere saying shit like \u2018Monaco \u2014 Land of Ahead Thinkers\u2019 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\u2019t 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\u2019t met anyone besides Jean-Philippe, and I\u2019ve only said a few words to him, so I\u2019ve just been walking around with the camera.<\/p>\n Read an exclusive extract from Monaco<\/em>, the new autofictional novella by Juliet Jacques<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113346"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113365,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113346\/revisions\/113365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTo<\/strong>: robinsonrj191@gmail.com
\nDate<\/strong>: 21 April 2022, 23:18
\nSubject<\/strong>: La Solitude<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/70.-Bust-of-Leo-Ferre-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/7.7.-Grave-of-Princess-Grace-768x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/6.4.-Francois-Bosio-Le-Christ-Mort-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/52914042142_371193445e_z.jpg\")
\nJuliet Jacques<\/a> is a writer and filmmaker based in London. She has published four books: Rayner Heppenstall: A Critical Study<\/a> <\/em>(Dalkey Archive, 2007); Trans: A Memoir<\/a> <\/em>(Verso, 2015); a volume of short stories, Variations<\/a> <\/em>(Influx Press, 2021); and Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021<\/em><\/a> (Cipher Press, 2022). Her fifth, a novella entitled Monaco<\/a><\/em>, is published by Toothgrinder Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"