He has been back in his beloved Provence for seven years now, still writing novels and nonfiction about the region's charms, its cuisine, and its people. But Peter Mayle's a bit more circumspect these days about throwing his personal life open to whoever might drive by or drop in. After his first book here, "A Year in Provence" – the one that made this part of France a household word – the crush of visitors eventually drove him into self-exile for more than four years near Long Island's Hamptons.

Today, Mr. Mayle meets reporters in Café Gaby, a bar-restaurant in the main square of this, his second adopted Provençal village, a place in which a comfortable mas, or farmhouse, lists for more than $3 million with the realtor up the street. Mayle and his wife, Jennie, live nearby, but he'd rather not say just where.

Next door to Café Gaby, in the town's tabac, the works of Mayle in English and in French are prominently displayed, from his famous first book about the region, published in 1989 as he neared 50, to his latest, "Provence A-Z."

Still, as an author whose "Year In Provence" has sold more than 5 million copies, been translated into about 30 languages, and made him something of a celebrity in these parts, Mayle remains gracious with his time and good natured in answering questions he's undoubtedly heard before.

He arrives wearing an untucked denim work shirt and loafers, no socks, even if the shoes, as recent interviewers have noted, are Gucci (I didn't bother to ask). He apologizes for being a few minutes late, even on this morning when rain streaks down from the normally peaceful and blue Provençal sky, even on this day when, Mayle says, the vet is coming to put down Alfie, one of his three dogs, at age 14.

Mayle orders a coffee and greets Gaby's dark-haired proprietor, who, he says, recently brought fresh venison to his house with a recipe for Mayle's wife to prepare it. And he chats with the ease of an old acquaintance as the conversation ranges from why the French eat so well yet stay thin to who his favorite authors are (maritime novelist Patrick O'Brian and essayist E.B. White are two).

What seems clearest is that after nearly two decades of writing about the character and the characters of Provence, Mayle's love for this rich and colorful region is undiminished. He talks of its bright blue winter skies, the wood fires and cold sunshine that set that season apart; the food, from daube to truffles; and the exaggerated nature of Provençal storytellers.

But then, he is one himself.

***

I had stumbled into this interview through serendipity. Reporting about the game of pétanque and its place in the life and lore of Provence, I told a source how delightfully Mayle had captured the game in his last novel, "A Good Year," turned into a movie starring Russell Crowe.

"Would you like to interview him?" my source asked.

Indeed.

I arrived with the requisite questions but also an interest in meeting a writer who allows me to laugh aloud at his portrayal of the region's exaggerated and eccentric characters.

It's hard to understand the anger some still hold in these parts toward Mayle; he's been blamed for drawing tourist throngs here as thick as the clouds of the 20-year locusts in America's heartland.

But it doesn't take looking at the realtor's listings in Lourmarin to see that this region also has prospered, in no small part because of Mayle's writing. (In 2002, Mayle was awarded France's Legion d'Honneur for, he says, "services to Francophonie.")

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