British Authors - 20th Century - Literary Biography, General & Miscellaneous French History, European Studies - France, British - Biography

A French affair

Name: A French affair
Author: Michael Kenyon
ISBN: 9780792717935

by Michael Kenyon

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Overview

Michael Kenyon's unorthodox introduction to the region described in A French Affair came about in the late 1960s when he and his wife turned on the TV to catch the end of an interview with Compton Mackenzie. The countryside in which he was being filmed looked so idyllic that they immediately wrote to him to ask where it was. It was the Lot, on the southwestern side of the Massif Central in France, and after several successful family holidays to the area, the Kenyons decided to stay and make the town of Cahors their home. A French Affair is the funny, wise, and wonderfully digressive account of what followed from that decision. With his mastery of the sly observation and his keen eye for the absurd, Michael Kenyon relates the delights and drawbacks of "going native" - from apartment-hunting and restoration to food and wine. And in its portrayal both of traditional local activities such as truffling and the vendanges, and the more multicultural events, like the Anglo-Irish-Franco-American Thanksgiving Dinner, A French Affair plays host to a wealth of colorful characters, including Kenyon's own irrepressible daughters. For this is also the story of a family growing up together - as much about personalities as places, this is travel literature at its most addictive.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This is a pleasant account of a British family's experiences as longtime residents of Cahors, a town in southwestern France. Crime novelist Kenyon ( Kill the Butler! ), his wife and three daughters progressed from being summer visitors to year-round renters and, finally, home-owners. He eschews the standard tale of charming experiences with quaint foreign electricians and plumbers for a more interesting chronicle of his clan's gradual integration into village life. The three girls lead the way; their language facility and adjustment to the rigors of French schooling set an example for their parents, who gradually become more fluent, make friends, participate in truffle hunts and grape gathering and, of course, savor the wonderful country food and wines of France. Kenyon evokes with quiet humor the ambience of the village, the characters of his neighbors and friends, the challenges and satisfactions of happily adapting to another culture. (June)

Library Journal

Kenyon, author of many crime novels and also a frequent contributor to Gourmet magazine, has tried to merge a pastiche of these articles into a coherent whole. The Kenyons--husband, wife, and three young daughters--moved to Cahors, France, after viewing on British television a documentary program about the Lot region of France. There they stayed, more or less, for several years until the children grew up and the parents divorced. Kenyon skims the surface of life in Cahors. We meet various characters and read about some fun times, but something is lacking. The book reads like an outline for a Britcom. Definitely not in the same class as Peter Mayle's books on Provence, this book is for libraries whose patrons can't get enough of this sort of thing.-- Paula M. Zieselman, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., New York