Synopsis
Forty-two, divorced and tired, Simon Shaw surveys the emptiness of his former home. Everybody had said it was the best house in central London. That was no surprise: his ex-wife had spent three years and used a team of decorators to make the perfect magazine house. But as the moving men take away the last of the furniture, Simon starts to consider the warm, seductive air of Provence. Aided by Ernest, his valet and close confidant, Simon brings the Hotel Pastis into being. Soon it becomes a haven for the rich and famous. Has Simon got away from it all? Or is his mid-life crisis just beginning?
Peter Mayle is the author of the phenomenally successful A Year in Provence. He has contributed to many publications and his work has been translated into over 17 languages.
Andrew Sachs is perhaps best known for his role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers. An actor, performer and scriptwriter, his voice is often heard as narrator of documentaries and as reader of innumerable audiobooks. He...
Publishers Weekly
As fans of A Year in Provence and Toujours Provence may have suspected, Mayle's skills as a writer translate well into fiction. His first novel is as adroit, funny and charming as his previous works, and again it is set in his favorite region of France. Newly divorced, disenchanted and bored with his job as a director of a prestigious British ad agency, Simon Shaw is delighted when beautiful Frenchwoman Nicole Bouvier suggests that he rescue from bankruptcy a half-finished hotel in the drolly named town of Brassiere-les-Deux-Eglises. Taking a huge risk, Simon resigns from his agency and becomes patron of the new establishment in the picturesque Luberon region. In counterpoint, Mayle crosscuts to the escapades of a lovable band of criminals who are conspiring to break into the vault of a bank in the neighboring village of Isle-sur-Sorges. As the threads of the plot begin to converge, Mayle displays his satiric eye for social foibles by skewering advertising execs in England and the U.S.; he is equally adept at evoking typical Provencal villagers. Wickedly sharp and sympathetic at the same time, his characterizations are accurate down to nuances of class differences, voice, accent and vocabulary. The novel is as smooth as a sip of pastis, and one hopes that Mayle will find his segue into fiction equally addictive. 100,000 first printing. (Oct.)