| Summary: | The present article proposes an account of the contemporary French Middlebrow through the study of a corpus of bestselling novels. I identify a recurring motif in the bestsellers of the Sarkozy years (2007-2012), a political period marked by debates on national identity and immigration, and thus pertinent to questions on the social imaginary and national representation. The findings demonstrate that the majority of the bestsellers representing contemporary France portray a relationship between a “foreign” character and a depressed or alienated French protagonist. A comparative analysis of the expressions of this theme establishes three distinct categories: firstly, escapist “lowbrow” narratives, by writers such as Marc Levy and Guillaume Musso, where a French expatriate finds salvation abroad thanks to a relationship with an Anglophone character; secondly, “highbrow” narratives of failure (by Michel Houellebecq and Marie Ndiaye) where the protagonist’s relationship with a foreigner increases anxiety or is abandoned; thirdly, “Middlebrow” narratives of recovery (by Muriel Barbery, David Foenkinos and Anna Gavalda) where the French protagonist falls in love with a foreign character within France and is rehabilitated. These three categories provide disparate models for understanding and approaching the problems inherent to contemporary life such as the atomization of traditional social groups. Their comparison puts into relief the core characteristics and function of contemporary French middlebrow fiction.
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