Ex-pats

Today I got an email from Amazon Books. They like to suggest books and CDs based on purchases I have made before. I always like to look through these lists. I’ve noticed a pattern in the genre of books they suggest. There seems to be a good deal of fictional or non fictional accounts of Americans (and sometimes the British) buying houses in France. The story is always the fulfillment of a life long dream of living in a charming French village filled with quirky and interesting characters. I have read several of these kinds of books. But now there seems to be a flood of these kinds of novels. There were 15 on my list today. I think France is being invaded by American ex-patriates, buying up real estate and then writing about it.

I wonder if there are any French ex-pats living here in the states and writing about it? And would those books sell in France?

I know there are French people here in New Mexico. Just this weekend, I met a French woman who told me she had ‘escaped’ from Paris when she was 18 and had lived all over the world. She was selling her photographs at a Winter Farmer's Market here in Albuquerque. I didn't ask her if she was happy that she had landed in the western desert. From her photos, she had found many interesting things here to photograph. Three of her pictures are featured in a New Mexico 2006 calendar. I wonder if she's bought a house? I wonder what she'd tell French people about her life here.