How To Eat, How to Live

By Martha Duffy

Oh, to discover in the pages of a book the secret of the sweet life -- the joys of a bountiful climate, brilliant sun and a splendid cuisine. The problem is that contentment is a tough subject for a writer. Travel literature is rich, the annals of staying put sparse. Cookbooks fill libraries, but the revelations of satisfied palates, at least accounts that seduce and inspire a reader, are scarce.

All that makes Peter Mayle something of a wonder. A devout sun worshiper and the husband of an expert amateur cook, he stumbled on a patch of Provence and left his native England without delay or regret. He did the things a lot of dreamers do: he bought language tapes, a 200-year-old house, a Citroen deux chevaux, and resolved to write a novel. But the renovation of ancient stone and the crafting of new fiction do not mix; each day workmen banished Mayle to a succession of chalky corners. So what could he do with his time except make his fortune -- by chronicling the scene around him in irresistible prose?

Two books later, Mayle is something of a publishing phenomenon. Toujours Provence (Knopf; $20), his second collection of essays, is climbing the best- seller lists. The success story began two years ago with the British publication of A Year in Provence. The hardback edition at first received a mild, pleasant response, but never underestimate favorable word of mouth. In paperback the book was No. 1 on the charts for 60 weeks, and Mayle's plumber, mason and the rest of the artisans became popular heroes. In the U.S. the paperback has just appeared, and the publisher is rushing extra printings.

It's significant that the first sentence of the first book is "The year began with lunch." This flat-bellied author ("only one real meal a day") loves food with discriminating passion and in Provence has found his ideal turf. "You pay attention," he observes, "to when the melons are good, when asparagus arrives, to the fact that wild mushrooms are due in three weeks. It's about as far away from pretentious cuisine as you can get. Everyone's got an opinion or a secret. With a couple of questions, they'll talk about it."

Or they'll talk to this curious listener. Toujours Provence contains an intricate aria of shoptalk from an expert truffle hunter who has even filmed his pig at work, "its snout moving rhythmically back and forth, ears flopping over its eyes, a single-minded earth-moving machine." A similar cameo on the history of pastis ("the milk of Provence") is written with an unpompous sense of discovery and an appropriate amount of thirst.

Though he has mastered the offhand approach, Mayle, 52, has a sophisticated sense of how to make words count and how to charm a reader. He credits his skills to his early career in advertising. He had chosen the field mostly because of his favorite English teacher, who, in addition to pointing out the elements of style, noted that writers "can live where they like, work on their own schedule, choose their subject and blame no one but themselves for failure." Mayle had finished college in Barbados, where his father was living. There he discovered another lifelong love: the sun. Says he: "I thought, you don't have to wear socks here. I am physically attracted to warm, bright skies."

In London he became the protege of adman David Ogilvy, whom he greatly admires. People in advertising are reviled nearly as often as lawyers, but Mayle thinks it makes a fine first career. "You learn to present an idea lucidly, and you must have a picture of who your audience is," he says. "It's a wonderful preparation for several things, like politics and charity work."

Sixteen years ago, Mayle quit the field. "I ran out of enthusiasm, which is essential," he says. The worst part was the drop in income: "Huge . . . huge." But other things suggested themselves. When his eldest son (he has five children) asked him about the facts of life, he found himself tongue- tied. He sat right down and wrote a manuscript, Where Did I Come From?, which was bought by a publisher in 15 minutes. Mayle's conclusion: "This is the game to get into."

He is still chastised in the press for another project -- a series of silly , books, done with a cartoonist, called Wicked Willie. Willie is an erect penis. Until the publication in Britain of Toujours Provence, the author had pretty much slipped under the critical net and tended to think of reviewers as tolerant folk like himself. But second time around, his detractors were ready. The Spectator magazine published not one but two critiques upbraiding Mayle for barging into print after only three or four years in the area, using occasional French phrases and being arch. One account even disparages Provencal cooking ("never the kind of haute cuisine to be found . . . in Burgundy or the Perigord").

Yes, there are occasional foreign words, and once in a while the author's geniality shades into coyness. But it is also true that the South of France has been a favorite stamping ground for British vacationers for generations now; many of the intelligentsia have bought houses. It just may be that Mayle has committed the unpardonable sin of making money out of simple material that was available to all.

On a book-promotion tour through the U.S. last month, Mayle met five people in Cleveland who had driven through his town within the past year. Small world. Now it's home to the "true heat and sharp light" of his adopted country. Not much has changed. The Mayles have a new car, but it is another Citroen. Finally he will finish his novel, to be called Hotel Pastis. It promises to be a good place to check into.