A Place in Normandy

by Nicholas Kilmer

Chronicles the author's purchase and reconstruction of his family's farmhouse in Normandy and his collisions with plumbers, owls, France, food, laundry, and the hardware store

Genres: France, Memoir

255 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 1996

About the author

Teacher of art and Latin in Vienna, VA, 1960-62; Action for Boston Community Development, Boston, MA, writer in department of planning and evaluation, 1966-67; English teacher at private school in Beverly, MA, 1967-70; Swain School of Design, New Bedford, MA, associate professor of liberal arts, 1970-82, dean, 1979-82; affiliated with Art Research of Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, 1984-88; founder of Nicholas Kilmer Fine Art, 1988—. Painter, with exhibitions throughout the Northeast.

Reviews

[Josephine Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between three and four. A memoir of times now and gone. Nicholas Kilmer goes to a small town, Mesnil, Normandy, France. Normandy has much rain, is much different than the south of France and other parts of that country. There are many cows roaming the landscape. Nicholas is going to Mesnil to work on the family's old house. It has been rented out, Mr Kilmer needs to go, get work done before the family renting the house arrives. His wife, Julia, will not be going. The couple has a son in high school, she needs to be home. Nicholas will be in Mesnil for a week. He writes about that week.

It is a beautiful house, but old, has been in this family for three generations. It was bought by Kilmers grandparents. His grandfather, Frederick Frieseke, an American impressionist painter from Michigan and his wife. Kilmer's mother, Frances, was the couple's only child. She grew up in this little town. She married Nicholas Kilmer's father, the son of Joyce Kilmer. a poet who was killed during World War I. He was thirty-one and left a wife and five children.

Frances and Kenton married and had ten children.

The house was old, nobody seems to know how old. it is a beautiful old house, needs much work done. Many well known, well to do people were hosted in this old house. The family is well known, well to do. This book has many pictures of the house and surroundings scattered around the book. Pictures inside, outside, people enjoying life. Some paintings done by Nicholas Kilmer's grandfather are in the book. Pictures and paintings of Frances growing up.

While trying to get work done, Mr Kilmer hosts several friends of the Kilmer family who stop by for a few days. Mr Kilmer writes back and forth in time, today, yesterdays, long before he was born. Rabbits are good food, enjoyed in that part of the world. Surprising to me.

When getting ready to head home, Nicholas calls Julia.
The two comment on how the two missed each other.

[Debby · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed the memoir/travel book

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this book about family as much as travel. Wish he'd written another book about the house.

[Janean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you dream of buying a big old house in France? Dream no more. Really. Give up that dream. Read this book and see if you still think it's a good idea.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one more in the genre of expatriates-moving-to-quaint -European-places goes, this one differs in that the author has actual familiar connections to the maison he enchants himself and his family with. They go back to at least the First World War with the place. Unlike many who, flush with nouveau riches, purchase plots as strangers to terre and domicile- and spend the rest of their books complaining about the hassles of getting any repairs done in a foreign land.
Kilmer avoids much of that by, yes, enumerating the many things he'll need undertake to restore the maison to habitability, and yet, limiting the timeline of his own project to the few weeks he has to oversee the place before his wife get it all together to move over the pond.
It differs, simply because the cultural familiarities do not clash in the least, there is none of that "ugly American paste-on facade" going on, and it's a nice honest story.
It's probably stil in his family too, one would hope.

[Annette]

Thanks to good friend Harriet Barry for this one! She and I have had such fun sharing tales of bicycling in France.

The author makes me a little crazy as he faces challenges, crises, many guests, a literal night owl, etc. He's made me think about the vast space between perfectionism and wabi sabi; procrastination, abject neglect, etc.

In the salon: "its little ornamental tables giving in, in different ways, to woodworm and gravity."

"We historians always think history is what got written, because that's all we can find."

One of his workmen doesn't believe in indoor plumbing: having water running through your house "is like keeping goats in your garden; nobody would do that."

A very fun read.