This week on the MashReads Podcast, we dive into the realm of the existential with*In The Cafe of Lost Youth by*Patrick Modia**, written in 2007 and recently translated by Chris Clarke. The book is the portrait of a woman named Louki, and a cafe in Paris in the 1950s, as seen by four narrators.*
Though a beautifully-written tribute to its location, the book unfortunately falls straight into the tropes of what we **w decry as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl — a shallow, undefined female character that exists largely as a fantasy and/or device for growth for male protagonists.* Read more...