Good-Bye, l'Ami — RIP Peter Mayle

Peter Mayle, the bestselling author of A Year in Provence is dead at the age of 78 after a brief illness.

The genius of Mayle’s breezy, entertaining writing lay in his ability to make readers believe that every day in Provence was like a lazy Sunday, even as he detailed the days when he could barely get through the doorway because of incompetent contractors, or the days when the mistral winds made it impossible to leave that doorway 

writes Bethanne Patrick, who heads her lithub piece with: 
For Peter Mayle, Retirement Became the Career