It is 1948. Harold and Barbara Rhodes, a young American couple, arrive in France for a four-month holiday, filled with anticipation, their luggage stuffed with soap, stockings and sugar; the staples that they are told they won't be able to buy in war-battered Europe. Their plan is to immerse themselves in the language and culture, and to leave behind the anxiety of their childless marriage.
They begin their trip at the Chateau Beaumesnil, determined to be enchanted. But there is much that bewilders them. Is Mme Vienot deliberately withholding the promised amenities, not only the hot water and warm bread, but also the bicycles on which they had imagined themselves cycling from chateau to chateau? Are they bing overcharged? Why is Mme Vienot's nephew Eugene so friendly one evening and so cool the next day? What is the mystery surrounding the absence of Mr Vienot? Why are they not welcomed as citizens of the nation that liberated Europe?
In this humourous, sympathetic and astute novel, Maxwell leaves his native Midwest of America and turns his clear eye on the clash between new and old-world cultures in the wake of the Second World War.
