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

"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

Author: Ann Barry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 03/11/1997
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.73lbs
Size: 8.48h x 5.60w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9780345407870


Review Citation(s):
New York Times 05/25/1997 pg. 24

About the Author
A former editor at The New Yorker and The New York Times, Ann Barry wrote extensively on travel and food. She died in 1996.