C'est La Folie

The true story of an urban man's search for a deeper, richer, simpler life (not to mention a dishy copine) in the heart of rural France...

What elevates this book... is Wright's gentle humour and his ability to create a vivid impression of his literal and emotional journey... with such wit and perception

Hilarious and evocative... Michael Wright's book provides the most startlingly honest answer to the question of "can you live your dreams or do they inevitably turn into nightmares?"

Wright captures the fun of the countryside perfectly

Born in Surrey in 1966, Michael Wright enjoyed an unfashionably happy education at Windlesham House and Sherborne and graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in English Literature. He spent several years working as a theatre critic, arts columnist and literary diarist in London whilst wondering what to do when he grew up. The answer turned out to lie in rural France, where he now lives.

One day in late summer, Michael Wright gave up his comfortable South London existence and, with only his long-suffering cat for company, set out to begin a new life. His destination was 'La Folie', a dilapidated 15th century farmhouse in need of love and renovation in the heart of rural France... 
Inspired by the success of his column in the Daily Telegraph about La Folie, this book is his winningly honest account of his struggle to fulfil a childhood dream and become a Real Man - to make the journey from social townie to rugged, solitary paysan. And in chronicling his enthusiastic attempts at looking after livestock and coming to terms with the concept of living Abroad Alone, the author discovers what it takes to be a man at the beginning of the 21st century, especially if one is short sighted, flat footed and not very good at games. 
Life-affirming, laugh out loud funny (and boasting more than its fair share of larger-than-life locals, bilingual chickens, diminutive but over-sexed sheep, invisible rodents, manly power tools with unpronounceable names, plus the occasional femmes fatale), this tale of a new-found life in France with a cat, a piano and an aeroplane, is both an elegy for a world that's fast disappearing as a hymn to the simple pleasures of being alive.

Michael Wright

Even better than his first... the same scrupulous honesty, humour and self-deprecation, but with an added vital ingredient

Wright wins over a begrudging reader, with writerliness and wit: his bickering hens, his beligerent cat and the emotions that this vast, lonely landscape elicits, described with a heartfelt exuberance

How do you find the woman of your dreams when you're nearly forty, living in the middle of nowhere and spectacularly ungifted in the art of seduction? 
 
Three years into his solo adventure in rural France, Michael Wright has everything he ever wanted: a ramshackle house, several manly power tools, a cat, a grand piano and a vintage aircraft. Yet the lovelier his life becomes, the lonelier he feels. Three unfulfilled wishes return to haunt him: to grow a perfect potato, to fly a Spitfire and, most of all, to meet his soulmate. 
 
Written with honesty, self-deprecating wit and life-affirming passion, Michael Wright's new memoir reveals how, while his livestock seem bent on reproduction, a solitary man can learn to accept being single . . .Or so he thinks until a bumptious American Labrador and a perilous landing in a light aircraft conspire to offer a glimpse of romance that could turn his whole world upside down.

Michael Wright

Praise for Je t'aime à la Folie

Even better than his first... the same scrupulous honesty, humour and self-deprecation, but with an added vital ingredient

Wright wins over a begrudging reader, with writerliness and wit: his bickering hens, his beligerent cat and the emotions that this vast, lonely landscape elicits, described with a heartfelt exuberance

Books by Michael Wright

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