A Year in Provence

A Year in Provence is a 1989 best-selling memoir by Peter Mayle about his first year in Provence, and the local events and customs.^[1] It was adapted into a television series starring John Thaw and Lindsay Duncan. Reviewers praised the book's honest style, wit^[2] and its refreshing humour.^[3]

A Year in Provence

First edition
Author	Peter Mayle
Language	English
Set in	Provence, France
Publisher	Hamish Hamilton
ISBN	978-0-679-73114-6

Plot

Peter Mayle and his wife move to Provence, and are soon met with unexpectedly fierce weather, underground truffle dealers and unruly workers, who work around their normalement schedule.^[4] Meals in Provençal restaurants and work on the Mayles' house, garden and vineyard are features of the book, whose chapters follow the months of the year.

Adaptations

In 1991 a radio adaptation was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.^[5]

In 1993, the BBC produced a television series based on the book, starring Lindsay Duncan and John Thaw, with appearances from Alfred Molina and James Fleet. Unlike the book, the programme was not well received by critics and it was later placed at number ten on a Radio Times list of the worst television programmes ever made^[6][7] with John Naughton, describing it as a "smugathon ... which achieved the near impossible – creating a John Thaw vehicle nobody liked".^[7]

Sequels

• Toujours Provence (1991)
• Encore Provence (1999)
• French Lessons (2001)

Cultural influence

Mayle's memoir provided inspiration for the 2008 satirical novel A Year in the Province by Christopher Marsh in which an Andalusian man persuades his wife and his three daughters to relocate to Belfast.