The Moustache

The Moustache, or The Mustache in the United States, is a 1986 novel by the French writer Emmanuel Carrère. Plot In Paris, a man shaves off his moustache for the first time in ten years. He is baffled when his wife reacts by saying that he never had a moustache. His world begins to crumble when she denies the existence of several people he knows and says his father is dead. Reception Publishers Weekly called the book "a tense, piercing reminder that a fine and shifting line distinguishes fact from mirage" and "a keen example of how readers are necessary captives of a narrator's perspective, however skewed or surreal". Adaptation The novel is the basis for the 2005 film The Moustache, directed by Carrère and starring Vincent Lindon.