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“How to Make a French Exit”


By Eugene Lim, originally published in The Believer (2018)


Illustration by Kristen Radtke

This is how you leave a party without saying goodbye—also known, with differing connotations, as the Gypsy fade, the Irish leave, or filer à l’anglaise. It’s easy. It’s like Allen Carr’s The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. You can’t give a précis for enchantment, but here’s my paraphrase of Carr’s method: stop smoking. The Talking Heads have a song called “Heaven” in which David Byrne sings, “There is a party. /  Everyone is there. / Everyone will leave at exactly the same time.” David Byrne knows there is no heaven; you can hear it in the song.

Read more in The Believer.
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