A Gift from Brittany: A Memoir of Love and Loss in the French Countryside

This is a profound and touching memoir of the joys, sorrows and personal growth of a young America artist. Marjorie Price's life is changed in ways she could never have anticipated when she leaves Chicago for Paris in the 1960's to enhance her art and to experience all things French. She marries a French artist, and together they buy a centuries-old farm in a tiny hamlet in Brittany. As her marriage unravels, Price and her young daughter become more comfortable with their new neighbors and their rural, unmechanized way of life. A central theme, and for me the most touching one, is the way Price forges an affecting relationship with a remarkable older woman who has lived all her life in the hamlet. Events and dialogue are recreated in a flowing dramatic narrative, laced with elements of sadness and humor. Every scene, every venue, is real and present, drawing the reader in as if witness to a staged play. Always the artist, Price perceives her natural surroundings in their ever-changing light and array of colors and forms, and paints it all with words as effective as brush strokes.

"This is a wonderful story of the coming together of cultures and generations. A woman artist finds herself in a foreign land; in spite of facing loneliness and hardship, she finds love right where she is in the friendship with an elderly village woman, and the friendship changes the foreigner's life. She learns new tricks to survive in the ancient French village and earns the respect of the villagers as she adjusts to her new life. It is a compelling story and you feel it really comes from the heart." Fred Andresen, Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia.

What a delight! This book gets my vote for the perfect summer read! I think it would make a wonderful movie as well. I was captivated from beginning to end by the adventurous life of this talented author.

When you wake up at 5 in the morning to continue reading, you know that the book has pulled you in! Written with both passion and restraint, the book resonates with the reader throughout. You cannot help but connect with this remarkable woman as she experiences life, love, loss and, most of all, friendship. It takes place in Paris and in Brittany, but really appllies anywhere because of its honesty and spirit. It is a DON'T-MISS book!

Marjorie Price paints as skillfully with words as with watercolors and oils. The Breton village in which she spent the early years of her married life, and her life as an artist, is made present in a series of vividly sketched images: a sudden, violent summer storm in the fields of new-mown hay; the tide receding from a rocky shore; a black-clad Breton woman gathering mussels in her knotted apron. The people in her life, including the brilliant artist husband whose dark side gradually emerges, are captured in quick, deft strokes, and her own journey to self-awareness as an artist is beautifully integrated with the rest of the story. Most of all, however, this is a story of friendship--of the author's enduring friendship with the remarkable Jeanne Montrelay, and of the richness of a bond between two women who have nothing in common except greatness of heart.