Monsieur
Lawrence Durrell
 In the first section, "Outremer," Bruce Drexel is returning to Provence after learning of his lover / brother-in-law's suicide. His wife is institutionalized and has been for some time, and he revisits Avignon with his friend Toby while attending to the necessary funeral arrangements and reminiscing about his life with Piers and Sylvie. He recalls stylistically rich winter scenes when the three were first in love, as well as a novel written about them by Robin Sutcliffe. The second chapter, "Macabru," recounts Bruce, Piers, and Sylvie's journey into Egypt where they meet Akkad, who initiates them into a Gnostic cult. Akkad takes them to Macabru in the desert in order to explain the group's rituals. There is an extended journey on the Nile in this section that parallels a later journey on the Rhone in Livia. "Sutcliffe, or the Venetian Documents" presents a new narrator, which renders the previous materials fictional, unless this is another fiction. Sutcliffe has various misadventures in Venice and recalls his failed marriage to Pia, Bruce's sister. "Life with Toby" returns to Bruce and Toby in Avignon discussing a theory about the Knights Templar that returns to the Gnostic theme; this section is interrupted by another text in "The Green Notebook," which returns to Sutcliffe. Monsieur was initially composed in a green notebook, and "A Green Notebook" consists largely of the unrevised notes that preceded the novel. This section becomes highly fragmentary. "Dinner at Quartilla's" is the last section of the novel and introduces another author, Blanford, who is writing a book in which Sutcliffe is a character. He dines with his friend, the old Duchess Tu, who is actually long dead. The novel ends with an Envoi that gives a continuing list of who begat whom throughout the novel but without a final resolution.