A Place in Normandy [Paperback]

Nicholas Kilmer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Place in Normandy is the story of the author's struggle over whether to retain his grandfather's home in Normandy-, France--a place that evokes enchanted childhood memories--or sell it. The farmhouse was the place where his grandfather, Impressionist painter Frederick Frieseke, created some of his greatest works. (His other grandfather was the poet Joyce Kilmer.) Nicholas Kilmer recalls several days in late spring he spent preparing the house for summer renters. As he considers his wife's arguments for selling the house, he weighs his own attachment to its quaint quirks, the beautiful surrounding countryside and the history and traditions the family home embodies. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

What distinguishes this account of the trials and joys of fixing up an old French farmhouse from many others like it is that Kilmer didn't buy the place but inherited it; also three generations of his family spent memorable years in it and in its Norman village of Mesnil, near Pont l'Eveque. Long established, warm relations with the villagers protect Kilmer from regarding them as quaint or exotic. Even more unusual, although he and his wife, Julia, appreciate the excellence of French produce, Kilmer doesn't dwell on the familiar marvels of French cuisine. Instead, while shoring up the neglected place?roof, plumbing, bearing walls, electric wiring?is the impetus for his book, it also becomes an excursion into family history and a meditation on French village life since the 1920s, when his grandfather, American Impressionist painter Frederick Frieseke, bought the house. He traces each generation's structural additions and alterations, the gardens they planted, their parties, weddings, funerals, communions, crises and pleasures, and the distinctive beauties of the countryside. This quiet book subtly catches the rhythms of life and the flavor of an American family at ease in another culture. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (September 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805055320
• ISBN-13: 978-0805055320
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,269,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Perfunctory and disappointing, May 4, 2006

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Place in Normandy (Paperback)

De gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose, but I really don't see why so many reviewers were so enraptured by this book. As a painter as well as a writer, Nicholas Kilmer has a flair for description and a talent for metaphor. But I never felt more than the smallest connection to his Norman home and the train of friends, relatives, tradesmen, and ancestors who marched through it during his few days of residence.

More to the point, I left the book without even feeling like I knew much more about Normandy than I did before I arrived. Unlike Peter Mayle's year in Provence, Kilmer's week in Mesnil seemed to open few doors to a broader understanding of the region and its people.

I think the comparison to Mayle is instructive because of the popularity of the foreigner-buys-a-house-in-France genre, lately expanded to Tuscany and other parts of Europe. Though American, Kilmer isn't entirely a foreigner: the house in Mesnil has been in his family for three generations. And so the reader could hope for some insights -- some sense of connection -- deeper even than the fish-out-of-water tropes of the other books. But I didn't get that at all. It felt more like the author's thought process was "People are writing books about houses in France; I have a house in France; therefore I will write a book." Unfortunately, the book turned out to be far more about collapsing bathroom floors and the mystery of the missing silver tray than about a passion for Normandy or even for a house. Does Kilmer really love the place? Or will he buy it from a sense of family obligation? I haven't the slightest idea.

I am going to be visiting Normandy in a few weeks, so I hoped this book would form a suitable introduction to the place and the people. Unfortunately, unless I end up standing in the author's upstairs bathroom, I'm afraid this book won't have much relevance at all. And I find that disappointing.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of a book that is too little known, June 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Place in Normandy (Paperback)

I found this book delightful, and so have passed it on to several people, all of whom think it is a great read.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A full-contact love affair with a romantic house, July 17, 1998

By 

Anne Hillis (Florida, USA and Mayo, Ireland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Place in Normandy (Hardcover)

Nick Kilmer's lush, exuberant prose takes the reader through an eventful week, during which, by means of flashbacks and vignettes, we experience his dithering over the purchase of his family's wonderful house in Normandy. He will have two gardens (one in Cambridge and one in Normandy), two roofs that need attention, piles of books and letters and projects and paintings in every stage of finishment, and one wife who cannot say no, and cannot say yes, to this expensive disaster that is his family's ancient home. Pleasantly meandering, we visit stone-age Normandy, the days of the war, the ancient farmer's wife in whose arms (he tells us) his grandfather died, newly baptized (but still staunchly Republican ...) A fine read, growing better with each rereading. Let's have more from this writer.