A French Affair (Curley Large Print Books)

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.