Synopses & Reviews
Imagine setting off for the South of France with a constantly cranky fifteen month-old, a stubbornly sage four-year-old, and a mountainous mélange of diapers, clothes, and toys. One steamy morning in the summer of 1950, Mary and Frank Littell dreaming of expatriate adventure and disreagrding the dire predictions of family and friends did just that. And after chasing their children through the bowels of an ancient ocean liner, learning some harsh lessons in napkin etiquette, and suffering the revenge of a surly waiter, they arrived finally not amid the glamour and romance of Paris, or the sun-drenched charm of Provence, but in the working-class suburb of Montpellier, where they spent one tumultuous, trying, and triumphant year.
While struggling to master the French language and cuisine, Mary discovered that the secrets of a successful shopping trip are a well-placed pointed finger and a firm là; that a child's birthday party spells disaster in any language; and that something as seemingly simple as a mayonaise recipe can stir up a small-scale civil war. She learned to her relief that her little family provoked more amusement than postwar hostility, more pity and dismay than suspicion from their French neighbors, and thanks to her fractured French, she and her son got a lot more than they had bargained for at the local café. And in between bouts of la grippe, the Littels did taste the pleasures of Paris, make a desperate journey to Marseilles, and take a side trip to a quaint country farmhouse.
As charming and unique as the town in which it is set, French Impressions is a riveting, whimsical, and uproarious account of an American family's time abroad.
Synopsis
Taking material from his wife Mary's journals, Littell pens this riveting, whimsical, and uproarious account of the couple's adventures in the South of France in the 1950s with their two young sons. Includes more than a dozen family photos.