When Jeffrey Greene, a prizewinning American poet, and Mary, his wife-to-be, discover a moss-covered stone presbytery in a lovely village in the Puisaye region of Burgundy, they know they have to live there. "French Spirits" is the tale of their odyssey to become not just homeowners but Burgundians. Greene recalls their experiences in turning the 300-year-old stone building which the locals believe houses numerous spirits into a habitable refuge. He brings to life their adventures in finding wonderful bargains with which to furnish their new space, including a firm mattress and some rather suspicious "antiques" bought from the back of a van. Greene offers the unexpected joys and surprises of village life, from celebrating his and Mary's simple backyard wedding to toiling in a verdant garden. He shares the experience of surviving his mother's decision to move in and humorously introduces the locals both human and non-human who define his and Mary's new world. Woven throughout the tale are the pleasures of rural France - wondrous food and wine, long-held rituals and feasts, dark superstitions and deeply rooted history.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Maße
Höhe: 198 mm
Breite: 127 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-553-81479-8 (9780553814798)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Jeffrey Greene received his MFA from the University of Iowa, and his Ph.D. from the University of Houston. He is the author of two books of poetry, To The Left Of The Worshipper and American Spirituals, which won the 1998 Samuel French Morse Prize. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation and many other journals and anthologies.
When a prize-winning poet and his wife, a microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, see a tumble-down, old stone presbytery in a picturesque village in Burgundy, they fall in love with it. The next thing they know, they're its proud owners. French Spirits is the tale of their efforts to renovate the house and furnish it (they buy some rather suspicious 'antiques' from a guy operating out of a van), their relationship with the locals, a picturesque wedding in their garden, and what happens when the author's mother moves in.
