At Home in France - Tales of an American and Her House Aboard

Informationen zum Autor Ann Barry Klappentext "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 Introduction   Everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. The second one is romantic, it is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there. —Gertrude Stein, “Paris France”   My deep attachment to France began in the fall of 1971, when I rented a farmhouse in the Périgord that two neighborhood Brooklyn friends, Joan and Richard Tup-per, were in the process of restoring.   My one obligation in their absence was to contact the local mason, who was to have completed a stone wall. Its purpose, my friends had explained, was to discourage the neighbor’s cows from tramping through the property. The wall was supposed to start at the road, run in a somewhat straight line down the hill close to the house, and end at the field. The cows, who grazed in the field and were herded home past the house, would then take the route on the far side of the wall from the house.   When I arrived, I could see that the wall had been only partially finished. I called on the mason, who promised to renew his efforts and finish the job within the week. Meanwhile, I made the acquaintance of neighboring farmers, who provided me with fresh-laid eggs (with Halloween-orange yolks) and milk still warm from the cow. To my dismay, they all pooh-poohed the wall: le grand mur de Chine, they called it, guffawing and slapping their knees.   Despite the neighbors’ mockery, I was pleased to see the wall completed and to have had a small part in accomplishing this for my friends. It was shoulder-high to a cow, solid, and well constructed. On the other hand, I was a little sorry to sidetrack the animals. Cows seem so harmless and benign, working their cuds, batting their gentle eyes. I have a favorite poem, titled “Cows,” by Eamon Grennan, which captures their special charm. It reads in part:   I love the way a torn tuft of grass and buttercups and clover sway-dangles toward a cow’s mouth, the mild teeth taking it in—purple flowers, green stems, yellow petals lingering on the hinged lips ...

Product details

• Authors: Ann Barry
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.03.1997
• EAN: 9780345407870
• ISBN: 978-0-345-40787-0
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 19 mm
• Subject: Travel > Travelogues, traveller's tales