A potentially charming memoir cum travelogue that never fulfills
its promise. Former New Yorker editor Barry became the proprietaire
of a small stone cottage in southwestern France when she was in her
mid-40s. Though single, she was tied to New York City by her
career, her apartment, her cats. The only time she could spend in
her new hometown of Carennac was the few weeks of vacation she took
annually. And she spent some of that precious little time exploring
Carennac's outlying regions, traveling for days to areas as
far-flung as Brittany. The result was that Barry never delved much
beyond the experience of the average tourist, even in her own
house. Her insights are, therefore, the stuff of travel magazine
articles. And she often spreads her confusion to readers rather
than enlightening them. For example, the episode of the mysterious
guest who occupied her house one winter in her absence: Barry
wanders around the cottage with her French caretaker inspecting the
caca (the Frenchman's word) of some animal who is never identified.
And as for her experience trying to get a table made to fit her
terrace - would the carpenter's incompetence have been even vaguely
quaint if he hadn't been speaking a foreign language? The book does
have some redeeming aspects. For one, Barry is never condescending
toward the French locals, something that immediately gives her an
edge on the Peter Mayles practicing the genre. And Barry's French
countryside is somewhat more exotic to Americans than Mayle's
Provence. Barry does leave the reader aching to own a house in the
French countryside - if only to prove how much better he could do.
(Kirkus Reviews)
"As beguiling and delectable as France itself."
*Mimi Sheraton
"Ann Barry tells her tale directly and clearly, without cloying artifice or guile, so that it has the warmth, honesty, and force of a long letter from an old friend. She makes her reader a welcome house guest in her much-loved little cottage in the heart of France."
*Susan Allen Toth
Ann Barry was a single woman, working and living in New York, when she fell in love with a charming house in Carennac in southwestern France. Even though she knew it was the stuff of fantasy, even though she knew she would rarely be able to spend more than four weeks a year there, she was hooked. This spirited, captivating memoir traces Ms. Barry's adventures as she follows her dream of living in the French countryside: Her fascinating (and often humorous) excursions to Brittany and Provence, charmed nights spent at majestic chateaux and back-road inns, and quiet moments in cool Gothic churches become our own.
And as the years go by, and "l' Americaine," as she is known, returns again and again to her real home, she becomes a recognizable fixture in the neighborhood. Ann Barry is a foreigner enchanted with an unpredictable world that seems constantly fresh and exciting. In this vivid memoir, she shares the colorful world that is her France.
"AN INTELLIGENT MEMOIR."
*The New Yorker
"DELIGHTFUL . . . BARRY WRITES ENGAGINGLY. . . . [She] is very much at home in such fine company as M.F.K. Fisher's Two Towns in Provence, Robert Daley's Portraits of France, and Richard Goodman's French Dirt.
*St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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