A Mayle moment in Provence

Today Mayle is happy to talk about matters other than the crowds and controversies that his book stirred up.

May I use a tape recorder, I ask? He says he prefers it. Too many journalists, he explains, are so intent on their meal that they use neither tape recorder nor notepad, producing articles in which neither questions nor answers bear much resemblance to what transpired. And so we're off.

My questions focus on pétanque and Mayle's writing process (I teach journalism). His answers often drift to what seem to be his favorite topics: food, wine, and all things Provençal. Being British by birth and humor, he punctuates his answers with understated and sometimes self-deprecating jabs.

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On the people of Provence: "They're not a quiet bunch, really. They don't whisper. Very rarely. Only about income tax do they whisper."

On why the markets of Provence serve such fresh food: "The quality is kept up by the consumer in the most direct way possible.... You don't like it when a French housewife gets mad at you. If she gets steam behind her, she is an unstoppable creature."

On his development as a writer: "I made the sort of logical progression from writing advertisements to writing children's books. It was the same sort of discipline – short words, short sentences. Get to the point.... I gradually graduated to longer sentences and words of two syllables or more."

Mayle originally came to Provence, he says, intent on writing a novel. But when that didn't come quickly he placated his publisher by suggesting a book about his life in Ménerbes instead. The initial print run of "A Year in Provence": 3,000 copies.

"You've got to put yourself at some risk in order to be lucky," he says.

He's written 10 books since but when asked how he writes, he insists, "Painfully slowly, actually. By lunchtime it's over."

Three of these – "A Dog's Life," "Anything Considered," and "Chasing Cézanne" – he penned on Long Island. But his heart, and subject matter, remained in France.

"I missed [Provence] very much," he says.

"But it just got ridiculous, the interest promoted by that [first] book. And people think they're the only ones who count. They arrive at your doorstep and say, 'You must get so fed up with all those other people in France.' "

Mayle says he works six days a week, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. when he's writing. On average, he drafts and revises about 500 words a day.

His ideas, he says, often spring from the pages of the local newspaper, La Provence. "So far this area has been remarkably kind to me as an inspiration," he says.

As with "A Good Year," wine and crime will guide Mayle's next novel, he says. In the International Herald Tribune this January, he noticed an article about a $2 million theft of French wine from within a gated California community. Nothing else was taken.

"I love nonviolent crime, beautifully carried out," he says. "And also I love writing about wine because it's an area about which there's so much nonsense talk."

My time with Mayle is running out. Kathy, my wife, asks if he'd mind signing a copy of "Provence A-Z," which he does, with a final aside: "In China they forge your signature on every book."

He pauses for a few photographs, shakes hands, and walks off toward home somewhere near Lourmarin, this time uncharted on tourist office maps.

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