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Footloose in France
Footloose in France (2023) is a travel book by the British authors John Adamson and Clive Jackson. They recall with humour their separate experiences of living in France in the mid-to-late sixties and early seventies: Jackson worked in the western Pyrenees and Adamson in Paris. The book, whose prologue and epilogue are set in West Mersea,[1] recounts Jackson and Adamson's French adventures, the recollection of which is sparked by the unexpected brightness of a late summer's afternoon at the Essex seaside resort, as if they were back in France. DescriptionThe alternate tales the authors tell are true reminiscences of a France of decades ago. There are insights into the worlds of wine-making, art and film, the challenges of language teaching, translating, banking, balloon-selling and much more. Encounters with Alain Delon,[2] Piem, the cartoonist,[3] Louis Derbré, the sculptor,[4] Toru Iwaya, the Japanese mezzotint artist,[5] Modigliani's daughter,[6] and across the tables in a Provençal restaurant, Noël Coward,[7] are mingled with interactions with the locals in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and exchanges with workers, among them waiters,[8] barbers and business executives, in Paris.[9] Falling in love at a château in the Pomerol,[10] putting on an exhibition of Franco-British humorous art in the Marais[4] and discovering a letter in Paris written by Vincent van Gogh to Paul Gauguin[11] are among the highlights of the book. Through the memories of those they meet the reader is transported back to the Algerian War;[12] to the occupation of Paris in the Second World War;[13] to the quandary of a young French doctor working at Buchenwald in the aftermath of the War;[14] and more recently to the behaviour of the CRS in the Paris riots of May 1968.[15] The book's frontispiece reproduces Tuileries Gardens, Paris, a painting by George Adamson, father of one of the authors. ReceptionThe Cambridge Critique hailed Footloose in France as having "all the quirky fun of an authentic adventure, a trove of fascinating real-life tales – whilst it reveals the real France in all its remarkable differentness".[16] Sir Quentin Blake found the incidents and experiences sympathetic to him and induced "a measure of nostalgia".[17][better source needed] The booksellers Hatchards on Piccadilly, London, dubbed the book, "A beautiful portrayal of the country from an outsider's perspective".[18][better source needed] References
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