The House in France by Gully Wells

The parallels are obvious. The writer's own parents lived in England and had a house in France; we, too, spent our summers there as children; and we were on a hill as well (rather a steep one) - not far away, at that. But the similarities end there. Alexandra "Gully" Wells (as in "gully-gully man"),   whose glamorous mother, the journalist and broadcaster, Dee Wells, was as much respected as her equally beloved step-father, Sir Alfred "Freddie" Ayer, was brought up in a heady mid-century mix of London, New York, Oxford and Provence, and has lived to tell the tale.

And what a tale it is. Witty, worldly and very well written, it is as much a requiem to an era as a family memorial. Her smart American mother - sharp of wit, pen and tongue, and famously attractive to men - wrote for Lord Beaverbrook and The New York Times, broadcast on the BBC, and maintained a lifelong, Alastair Cooke-style, love-hate relationship with her homeland; while her equally well known husband (whom she married, perversely, twice) was the revered Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford, alternating between a famously esoteric career and an openly lascivious lifestyle, involving female admirers of all ages (his third wife, Vanessa, was Nigella Lawson's mother), both within and without his Oxford quad.

Comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the late Peter Mayle, but that would be unfortunate. This book is a distinctly more global affair, invoking France as much as foreign parts; but it remains anchored by the softening moods of La Migoua, whose slow and sleepy Provencale benevolence - calming in times of crisis, restorative in times of peace - shines like a beacon throughout.

Of its kind, a gem of social history.

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