Mariah Devereux Herbeck recently published an article in Romance Notes, a journal of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, titled “Cerberus at the Gates: The Demonization of the French Female Concierge.”
In the article, Devereux Herbeck analyzes the vilification of fictional French female concierge figures in two 20th-century works: René Fallet’s novel “Paris au Mois d’Aôut” (1964) and André de Richaud’s 1950s short story, “Echec à la Concierge.”
As Devereux Herbeck demonstrates, close examination of these works reveals not only the working class female figure’s ability to unnerve middle- and upper-class men, but also the reasons for and implications of her subsequent downfall in these male-centric narratives.