A Good Year
by Peter Mayle
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter MayleEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-06-14
ISBN: 0375705627
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of A Good Year
Book Review: "You'll come to see that a man learns nothing from winning [except] how much more enjoyable it is to win."
Summary: 4 Stars
(3.5 stars) Though this delightful novel does not precede the rich and heady memories, adventures, and interesting characters which one finds in A YEAR IN PROVENCE, Mayle's earlier story of Provence, it does pique the reader's imagination with its romantic story of a chateau and a vineyard and a wine scam in which a case of great wine may sell for one hundred thousand dollars. Max Skinner, a down-on-his-luck London investment banker, learns on the day that he is dismissed from his job that his uncle Henry has died in Provence. Max, the son of a British diplomat, had spent many happy summers with his childless uncle, and though he had not seen him recently, he discovers that he is the heir to Uncle Henry's farmhouse/chateau and its vineyards.
With money advanced to him by his former brother-in-law Charlie, a London real estate "baron," Max goes to Provence to see the estate and vineyards, which have been managed for years by Claude Roussel, a local farmer responsible for the vines. Max quickly discovers, however, that the wine produced on the estate is the equivalent of "pipi du chat," undrinkable. The locals in the town have their own priorities, and Max learns in short order that he cannot take people--or what they say--at face value. Though he hires an "oenologue" to visit the chateau to look at the vines, the soil, and the wine the vineyard produces, he suspects that this man may have ulterior motives. Max is soon joined by his wine-loving friend/ex-brother-in-law Charlie and a young woman from California who may have a closer claim to Uncle Henry's estate than Max.
As Max learns about the local wine industry of Provence (even more cut-throat than the investment banking world of London), the reader gets an education and quickly becomes involved in the heady world of wine selling and collecting. The extent to which some growers will go to hide assets and deceive the authorities and the public comes under the microscope here, as Max has to decide whether to become a full-time vineyard owner and lover of (honestly produced) fine wine, or to return to London.
Though Mayle may not be as descriptive or as concerned here with reproducing exact pictures of life as he does in A YEAR IN PROVENCE, he does create an amusing set of circumstances which raise questions about the wine industry. His tone is light and non-judgmental as Max navigates the minefields faced by any stranger to a community governed for generations by the same families. The succession of love stories keeps even the most jaded reader amused and interested, as Max makes his decision about whether to stay in Provence or return to "civilization." Mary Whipple
A Year in Provence
The Vintage Caper
Toujours Provence
Summary of A Good Year
The writer with a claim to being the world?s foremost literary escape artist is back, with an intoxicating novel about the business and pleasure of wine, set in his beloved Provence. Max Skinner has recently lost his job at a London financial firm and just as recently learned that he has inherited his late uncle?s vineyard in Provence. On arrival he finds the climate delicious, the food even better, and two of the locals ravishing. Unfortunately, the wine produced on his new property is swill. Why then are so many people interested in it? Enter a beguiling Californian who knows more about wine than Max does?and may have a better claim to the estate. Fizzy with intrigue, bursting with local color and savor, A Good Year is Mayle at his most entertaining.Literary Books
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