Death in the Dordogne
Louis Sanders
July 2002; Serpent's Tail (Cover price: EUR 11.42)

This one is not actually new; the same author has since added two more titles to a genre he has carved entirely for himself as far as I can tell: British expats who happen upon bodies dead of suspicious circumstances in the Dordogne.

Not just for mystery fans: the first in a series of three Dordogne crime books

What's most interesting about it is the fact that it's written by a Frenchman, albeit a Frenchman who lived many years in London and is married to an Englishwoman. Nonetheless, it's the point of view of a French person looking at the English looking at the French.

What does he see?

The English drink too much; they exaggerate their accents to seduce French women; and they are ultimately destined to decamp and go back to their tiny flats in London, driven away less by their surprising tendency to happen upon murderers, then by cold Dordogne winters and sheer boredom.

The main character is an Englishman who comes to France to become a painter after a love affair goes wrong in London; he becomes obsessed with the idea that a man killed by a falling tree in his rural hamlet was actually murdered. He solves the mystery, although more by accident than by a demonstration of Miss Marple-like pluck.

I'm not British nor do I live in the Dordogne, so I can't judge the accuracy of his depiction of this community; what he portrays is a motley crew of eccentrics who have come to France primarily so they can pretend to be from a different class than the one they actually come from. I found them charming, but then I'm a sucker for an English accent too.

The depiction of rural France seemed familiar to me, however: the old couple who kill or produce all their own food and bottle their own spirits reminded me of my husband's maraîcher grandfather; I too have often been struck by how often WWII comes up in conversation; and I recognized the conspicuousness the lead character feels as 'the village Englishman', a type not equated with the village idiot but who is treated with the same kind of patronizing affection.

BOTTOM LINE: I always say there are two kinds of expats living in France: those in Paris and everybody else. Sanders' books are fun, quick readers for either camp, either to play 'I know that place' while reading or as a reminder that French life and Parisian life have very little in common.

'An Ignoble Profession' and 'The Englishman's Wife' are Louis Sanders' other two novels in the series, which he writes in French; I haven't been to find the original French version, only the translation (very well done by Adriana Hunter).

Winewoman@Bergerac, France
Helen Gillespie-Peck
July 2005; Melrose Books (Cover price: EUR 26,14)

An introductory wine book, but with an interesting back-story

The twist is the reading-between-the-lines biographical vignettes tossed in liberally by the author; it's kind of like a long-play version of one of our own Expat Tales written by a woman who moved to Bergerac with her first husband at the beginning of the 'British invasion' in the 1980s. Now she has her own vineyard and wine-school (and a second husband after the first went back to the UK, 'abandoning' her here.)

What I enjoyed most were the numerous historical anecdotes that she writes into her descriptions of the various wine-types; for someone who found herself skipping over the technical parts, it was interesting to learn more about how the history of wine and the history of France are intertwined.

BOTTOM LINE: An accessible, how-to title for wine neophytes and an interesting look at a woman who carved how a life in France on her own terms; the prose suffers from the excessive use of the exclamation point, a form of punctuation that should require a license before a writer is qualified to use it.

So Far and Yet So Near: Stories of Americans Abroad
Edited and published by American Citizens Abroad
November 2005 (Cover price: US $25)

Not just about France, of course, but we're well-represented

American Citizens Abroad is a non-profit that keeps tabs on migratory Americans, however, with the goal of lobbying on behalf of their interests in Washington.

This book is a new effort, begun in 2004, to solicit essays of 2-3,000 words from Americans abroad reflecting on their experiences; just as there is no one who counts Americans abroad, there are surprisingly few titles like this one so it's worth noting.

Of some 47 essays in the book, only four are written by Americans living in France; but I actually preferred reading the essays from Americans in other countries as a good reminder of what are universal aspects of expat life and what are features unique to France.
 
BOTTOM LINE:  A bit of an indulgence at US $25 for a paperback. For me, who calls myself half tongue-in-cheek a 'professional' expat, it was worth adding to my collection.

The quality of the writing was uniformly not embarrassing and some of it was quite good, even if none of these writers is going to give David Sedaris any competition. Still, the quality of the printing is high and it doesn't read like an amateur effort. If you're going through a home-sick or fish-out-of-water phase, it may provide some comfort, or at least some perspective. It's available on Amazon.com in the States or the UK, but from France, you'll probably have to order it direct from the ACA website. 
 
About France
Joseph Harriss
May 2005; iUniverse (Cover price: EUR 28.07)

The author finds France 'fascinating' and 'maddening'; sound familiar?

The book is a collection of his essays, all written for some other publication and some dating back 20 years or more, to which he has tacked on an 'update' that tries to provide a more contemporary context; all of the essays are elegantly written and many of them have real jewels of either cultural insight or historical tidbits. (My favourite: 'The Masterful, Medieval Brotherhood of the Compagnons')

Still, it felt like a bit of a cheat that he'd recycled the entire book, without adding any new material; and some of the essays, notably on the Communist leanings of the intelligentsia, seem markedly out of date, despite his addendums.

BOTTOM LINE: You have to be prepared to do a bit of mental juggling to read this one as the generation he mostly writes about is largely, if not passed on, then passed by already. There are a handful of essays here written after 2000, but for those who have not lived here for 20 years, there may be a disconnect between Harriss' France and your own.

Still, he's an incisive writer who has enjoyed enviable access to the top levels of Parisian society; one of his recurrent themes is the American love-hate relationship to France, but he's not one of these hot-shot correspondents who parachute in, whip out a book, and then leave. Harriss spent his career here, raised a family here, and still lives here. The body of his work, represented here, deserves the respect of anyone who lives in or writes about France.

April 2006

Copyright Expatica

Subject: Living in France