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Filled with fascinating details of expatriate life, "French Impressions" is a riveting account of an American family's (mis)adventures abroad. Photos.

A year in France in 1950 for the Littell family was not exactly A Year in Provence with Peter Mayle. No lovely scenery, no edible delights, not even good wine. But the Littell's French adventures are certainly entertaining. Put an inept American housewife in a country entirely devoted to cuisine, and in the working-class city of Montpellier, "which made Cleveland look like Paris," and you have the makings of a madcap comedy with a heroine who might well have been Lucille Ball with two small children. Based on the writings of journalist Mary W. Littell and written in her voice by her son John, who was 4 years old when the Littell's went to France, the book follows the family of four from one quirky adventure to another. Mary, who is a failure at learning French, survives in her strange new home by speaking like Tonto--using simple words in the present tense, or in English and loudly when all else fails, and by buying up all the canned food in the city. She's a one-woman sideshow when she shops and accidentally starts The Great Mayonnaise War when the league of French housewives tries to teach her the best way to make mayonnaise (half insist on using a fork, the others declare spoon is best). Little John becomes Mary's interpreter (of French and French ways) while 15-month-old Stephen rarely stops crying. Mary's husband Frank reads his small children Great Expectations and is the world's most outrageous teller of historical tales. He also makes a scientific search of 52 bars. Being 1950, there's much cocktail drinking and the parenting is a bit archaic. Mary never does learn to cook, but, fortunately, she does learn that love and affection work better when parenting than yelling. French Impressions is a fun romp through a vanished way of life--both American and French--with a fabulous and witty storyteller.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Lesley Reed

"No normal people, unless facing imminent arrest, would even contemplate such madness," Littell says of the year his family spent in France in the early 1950s. Frank Littell, John's father, enrolled at the University of Montpellier on the G.I. Bill, taking his wife, Mary, and his young sons along. The tales of the family's experiences in the south of France are told from the perspective of Mary, whose diaries and other writings form the basis for this memoir. With Frank busy at school, Mary is left to fend for herself and to try to make herself at home in the strange city. A self-described dunce at learning languages, she struggles to communicate with the locals, while her children, four-year-old John and 15-month-old Stephen, effortlessly switch between English and French. Mary recounts with self-deprecating humor the disastrous Thanksgiving dinner when, unable to procure a turkey, she unknowingly cooks a swan; her encounters with the "O-la-la ladies" (so-called for their invariable reaction to Mary's decadent American buying habits) during her daily shopping trips; and her horror when she discovers she has been ordering alcoholic cider for Stephen at their local watering hole. Inevitably, despite such obstacles, intrepid Mary and her family win the hearts of their neighbors and settle into the pace of life in Montpellier. Charmingly related with Mary's dry wit, the anecdotes that make up this memoir are amusing if dated. B&w photos.

Height (mm) 203 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Width (mm) 136