Readers and friends have asked me how I come up with the material for my novels. There is no quick way to reply to a question which has several components. In this entry and the next two entries, I will be sharing with readers the setting of my next novel and introduce you to the strangeness that begun halfway through my stay in a remote village.
On this blog, I will attempt to discuss the making of my latest book due out next summer which I will be writing on location at my three-week residency in France. I plan to have most of the work done and edit while there in a beautiful and well-appointed chateau just south of Paris.
Why France, readers have asked. I was in France in the spring of 2022 while attending a retreat. It is my haven of peace and was my fourth visit into this splendid country. However, this time, the venture was for two purposes: A writing retreat of seven days and a visit to a friend whose husband I had known while in university in a small New England town. The New England town which was the wellspring for my stories from haunted antique dealers in Haunted Heirlooms, my anthology released in 2021. You’ll find Haunted Heirlooms in the pages of this website under “Books” if you’re curious and would like to purchase after perusing the Amazon reviews.
However, back to the birth of this upcoming book. The Isolationist is based on my friend’s village which was a mere twenty minutes away from the writing retreat I attended. It was too convenient and when I told her where I was attending this writing retreat, she replied with an invitation to see her and her then husband (Now divorced and living in Spain.). Susan Dilworth was very glad to invite me as the first ever visitor to her home and “gite” which is French for the second house attached past the barn on her property. A gite is a house usually purchased with a main house for the purposes of use as a guesthouse and rental property.
In my case, I was staying at her “gite” for free. I would have access to a full kitchen, dining room and parlor, with the added benefit that the entire property past the gates was walking distance to her small village. It was, indeed, very convenient if not a great opportunity to see how I would like the idea of living in a small village nestled in the woods, about an hour from Bordeaux and some towns which the TGV (High speed train) would be passing through.
After attending a writing retreat, what a better way than to spend an additional two weeks in a space where I may have an opportunity to write.
The village of four hundred inhabitants which I will give a fictitious name in the book in the interest of protecting its current residents, was in the Dordogne region which for some of you may not be a familiar name that comes up when you travel to France. It is in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, closer to the Atlantic and is considered as southwest France. If you google “Bordeaux”, you will see it is nestled in this region of France. It is quite enchanting and intoxicating in its beauty.
However, several hours from Bordeaux sits this village. Yes, the village is remote. The inhabitants, however, despite its remoteness surrounded by primeval forests, boasts an international set of residents who now call it home. There are still French residents remaining in the village, but half have left and the remaining half have reintegrated into the neighborhood of expats. The balance of the small population are British, Danish, South African, North African and South Indian.
The homes in the village lie on three of the cobbled streets. The stone houses face each other, commencing with a stream where laundry was done in the olden days and ending at a peak where a Catholic Church still chimes the morning and evening services.
On the other side of the church whose bell tower commands a view of the rest of the village and into the vastness of the forest beyond, a sole fountain can be seen in the courtyard. Past the courtyard are the other two streets. Thus, the village forms a “Y” configuration with the church as its center, set on a hill.
One boulangerie sits nestled next to the mayor’s home on the adjacent street next to the ancient fountain. Across from him sits the one and only “medicin” (Medical doctor) with his home and a pharmacy attached to it. The “Postale” or post office sits across the doctor’s home, nestled between two homes which lead further into the next village several miles away.
The third and last street is a medley of homes built in the thirteenth century as the rest of the village. Old but sturdy, they are populated by older residents whose children are grown in their teens and attend the local high school in the next village. Few are children younger than sixteen. Thus, it was into this solitude and silence of a thirteenth century village that Susan and her husband chose to purchase a house that was formerly a “pigeonnaire”, with a parapet that allows the pigeons to nest.
However, Susan sought privacy and a large garden which was not to be had in the village. All of the homes bordered each other like townhouses, with only a small courtyard behind the house, walls attached to neighboring walls like New York’s brownstone homes. Thus, Susan and her husband Pete looked further and purchased a house much larger than the village homes.
Past the church and past the laundry stream the house sat. It was also made of stone with a terracotta roof like the rest, but it had about four acres of land, a vast vegetable garden, now gone to weed since the last owner. The house had a large dining room, two living rooms for entertaining and a small kitchen. Bedrooms faced the village nearby and one faced out to the forest beyond.
The house also had a barn where chickens and pigs were kept at some point and goats meandered in the dust.
Beyond the barn, attached to on one side was the “gite”. The guesthouse.
It was this guesthouse where I found myself for two weeks in the last few days of April which yielded to spring.
If you’re a writer, yes you would find this splendid location perfect for the creation of a new work. I did. I flew to the writing retreat after taking the high speed train from Charles de Gaul airport in Paris and shortly, Susan picked me up on the last day at the chateau and I settled in nicely on my first night at her guesthouse.
CONTINUED on the next blog.