It’s Edinburgh Film Festival 2020 and critic Victor Eaves meets filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in a novel blending mad vulgarity with slingshot satire. French Toast is a family farce and cinematic adventure starring a giant of the silver screen.

La femme. Le mari. L’enfant. Le chat. Le petit dejeuner. Le journal. L’auteur. La festival du filme. La critique. L’agent. Le mort. La naissance.

“This is the story of my encounter with the venerable French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard. In 2020, when he was 90 years old, Godard was invited to Edinburgh to speak at the Film Festival and I was chosen to meet him, as I was the only journalist in the city who both spoke French and had seen any of his films.”

VICTOR EAVES

"Burnett’s latest novel is both a scabrous satire and a rollicking caper, and comes stuffed with big ideas, memorable set pieces, clever in-jokes and caustic asides. Buried within the mayhem lurk shrewd insights into artistic judgment."

THE HERALD

“Peter Burnett is not in the business of fuelling hubris. He is concerned with questions about meaning, value and the nature of authenticity.”

SCOTTISH REVIEW OF BOOKS