A retired French academic, François, is forced to head to Switzerland on foot. A civil war with unclear issues weighs on his own country, but other crucial reasons push him to flee. He has just escaped from prison and has nothing keeping him in war-torn France. Switzerland offers medically assisted suicide, at a price.

After he arrives at a small station without a train, François meets Constance, a young cellist who is also adrift. Their solitudes will unite for the journey that awaits them.

But barely on the road, the tandem is kidnapped by a strange group of teenagers, armed and unpredictable, like their leader. Between forced marches, promiscuity, permanent danger, François and his companion in misfortune will try to save themselves.

L’Échappée is the story of a man aware of having “served his time” who finds himself immersed in an adventure confronting him with a youth other than his own, with his past, but also with a reality that he never would have imagined.

Praise for Villa Wexler (2021):

Jean-François Dupont was born in 1956 in Ambérieu-en-Bugey. After teaching literature and cinema on the banks of the Ain, he now devotes his time to writing and traveling. After the captivating Villa Wexler, the author continues his exploration of memory and adolescence from a new angle.