Englishman Amoureux [Lingua Inglese]: Love in Deepest France - Rilegato

Michael Sadler is a writer and academic. Born in Lewes, he now lives in Paris, where he teaches an MA course in Contemporary French Studies at the British Institute. He is married with one daughter and grows his own leeks.

The French like to think they wrote the rule book when it comes to the art of l'amour. So how do they react when a 'rosbif' tries to muscle in on the act?
After the romantic encounter in the Loire Valley bathroom at the end of An Englishman à la Campagne, Michael Sadler dumps the University of Swindon and returns to France intent on winning the heart of Lou Charpin, his belle française. Easier said than done. Unsure of his credentials, he decides to seduce her family at the same time . . . playing Scrabble with the fiesty, Craven A-smoking grandmother; lending his farmhouse to his future chaud lapin (hot rabbit?) of a brother-in-law; erecting a French tent in the rain; explaining King Lear to an adolescent more intent on sowing birdseed in his window boxes; surviving a Greek Tragedy-style family Christmas; conjugating the imperfect subjunctive of épouser and - le comble de l'arrogance - wooing Lou Charpin away from her French beau, a plutocratic optician who is less than appreciative of rivalry from the barbaric north . . .
How do you love à la française? Are they better at it than us? Sadler watches the late-night movie - an erotic encounter between a luscious cleaning lady and a Parisian dermatologist - and takes copious notes. After the Latin lover, is it now the moment for the rosbif Romeo? In An Englishman Amoureux, the third instalment of Sadler's warm and wonderful memoirs of life in France, all is revealed.
£10

[author photo]
Michael Sadler once wrote a doctoral thesis on the failure of the French Symbolist poets to write fiction. He has since managed marginally better himself. His work includes writing for BBC Radio 3 and television, a history of music and rock in strip cartoons, a French art-house film starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and translations of Marivaux and Musset for the BBC/RSC. In 2002-3 he adapted Terry Johnson's Hysteria for John Malkovich's production at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris, and is in the process of translating Tom Stoppard's new play. He was recently made a Knight of the National French Tripe Fraternity, is the ex-president of the Livarot cheese festival and a regular contributor to the Canal+ programme Le Cercle. He is a Senior Lecturer at the London University Institute in Paris, where he runs an MA course in Contemporary French Studies. He likes Schubert, Led Zeppelin and, if he ever had the chance to taste it, Château Pétrus. He lives in Paris and the Touraine, where he grows his own leeks. He has a French wife, a French-English daughter, and was recently awarded the Légion d'honneur.
SIMON & SCHUSTER