The Grand Tour to Forty A Novel of Expensive Mistakes and Exquisite Timing

Meet Del Renault: French-German aristocrat, reluctant tech executive, and professional avoider of life's larger questions. As his fortieth birthday looms like a particularly well-dressed apocalypse, Del embarks on a year-long odyssey through the world's most glamorous cities, armed with nothing but a trust fund, a cutting wit, and an alarming addiction to rosé wine and LEGO Ferrari sets.

From the sun-soaked tennis courts of Sitges (where he loses spectacularly) to the champagne-hazed casino floors of Monaco (where he accidentally commits light theft), from fashion week disasters in Paris (involving pink feathers and an angry drone) to psychedelic mishaps in Brooklyn (where he debates philosophy with temporal versions of himself), Del's journey is a masterclass in how to fail upward with panache.

Accompanied by his long-suffering valet Henri—who manages Del's chaos with the weary efficiency of someone who's accepted that his employer treats dignity as optional—and an international cast of beautiful misfits including fashion terrorists, tech bros with delusions of disruption, and a ninety-year-old Mexican grandmother who considers death "good party theme," Del discovers that turning forty might be less about growing up and more about accepting you never will.

Part Brideshead Revisited, part Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (but with better tailoring), The Grand Tour to Forty is a champagne-soaked meditation on modern masculinity, the art of sophisticated failure, and the discovery that sometimes the best way to find yourself is to get thoroughly, expensively, and memorably lost.

"A brilliant comic novel that manages to find profound truths in the most ridiculous situations. Del Renault is the narrator we didn't know we needed—part Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster, part Waugh's Sebastian Flyte, and entirely his own magnificent disaster."

For readers who appreciate: Evelyn Waugh's aristocratic satire, David Sedaris's self-deprecating humor, and anyone who's ever wondered if maturity is just youth with a larger wine budget.

Warning: Contains dangerous levels of rosé consumption, competitive LEGO assembly, and the kind of existential questions that can only be properly addressed while wearing bespoke Italian suits. May cause sudden urges to book first-class tickets to somewhere wildly impractical.