When it was published in France in 2022, Dear Dickhead, Virginie Despentes’s latest novel, became an instant bestseller, pushing the author – already a household name thanks to her Vernon Subutex trilogy – towards literary stardom. She has come a long way since her years as a teenage punk, sex worker and co-director (alongside porn actress Coralie Trinh Thi) of the rape-revenge film Baise-Moi (‘Fuck Me’), which, upon release, became the first film to be banned in France in twenty-eight years. 

Dear Dickhead is an epistolary novel, tracing the correspondence between a scrawny, forty-something, moderately successful writer, Oscar Jayack, and a middle-aged actress, Rebecca Latté, formerly the nation’s punkish sweetheart. Their exchange begins after Oscar posts a sour takedown of Rebecca on social media, bemoaning the loss of her looks and her status as fodder for the wet dreams of teenage boys everywhere: ‘A tragic metaphor for an era heading swiftly to hell in a handcart … Not just old. But husky, slovenly, faintly repulsive, and that filthy, loud-mouthed persona … Someone told me she’s become an inspiration for young feminists … Am I surprised? Am I fuck.’ Rebecca sends Oscar a strongly worded reply beginning ‘Dear Dickhead’, and a correspondence between the two begins. 

Over the course of their exchange, we learn that Oscar and Rebecca grew up in the same lower-middle-class suburb of Nancy, and that Rebecca was friends with Oscar’s semi-estranged older sister, Corinne, now a militant lesbian. We also learn that Rebecca, a lifelong junkie, feels increasingly alienated by her