In search of the good life, Sophie and John retire in rural France. Their ignorance of the French language and culture serves to prevent them achieving their aim.
The story describes the adventures and misadventures of a couple from England who decide to retire in France, not realising that it would be helpful to know more than just a few words of French. They encounter a hostile neighbor but are helped by other expats. In a parallel story, a young woman moves to France in order to write a book but finds herself involved in a love affair with another expat, a handyman who comes to mend a leaking faucet in her house.
Excerpt
“I know our budget is limited,” Sophie resumed her harangue, taking a deep breath as she made a conscious effort to sound logical and restrained, “but there has to be something better than all those jerry-built shambles that seem to be on the verge of collapse. I can’t imagine what possesses anyone, even a French peasant, to live in a house where the toilet is separated from the kitchen by a curtain, there’s no bathroom to speak of, and the floorboards are simply rotting away. Not to mention the cramped rooms and the revolting wallpaper. No one seems to have heard of an en-suite bathroom, and everything looks dark and dingy, not at all like the houses they’re always showing people on those programs about relocating to France.”
Professional Reviews
Challenges and problems facing expats
A great book that traces the challenges and problems facing expats. Dorothea, herself an expat, is a marvelous storyteller and knows firsthand what this is all about. Skillfully she explores life in the new world, a world that in many ways is not so different from the ones that this couple of expats was trying to escape. Fearing that the "old country" no longer was the country that they knew in earlier years they discover many of the same problems in the "new" country to which they escaped. I highly recommend this novel.
Move, aside Peter Mayle!
CHASING DREAMS AND FLIES recreates the atmosphere and setting of southern France perfectly, with an emphasis on the British ex-pat population seeking to retire to the countryside and live out their golden years at a leisurely pace, immersed in a new culture and relaxed way of life. In addition, the novel weaves into its narrative the issue of Moslem refugees who have also settled there, focusing on the clash between them and the British within the French provincial community. Shefer-Vanson deftly weaves together two plot lines and ends her novel with a shocking, but entirely credible finale.
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