About the Author

Peter Mayle is the author of fifteen books, nine of them novels, including the beloved bestseller A Year in Provence. A recipient of the Légion d’Honneur from the French government for his cultural contributions, he lived in Provence with his wife, Jennie, for more than twenty-five years. Mayle died in 2018.

Reviews

Both canine ``memoir'' and cautionary tale, this sprightly account of the further adventures of Boy, Mayle's real-life dog introduced in Toujours Provence, is a gem of its kind. As animated by Mayle, Boy is a clever chap given to literary allusions, urbane observations and stinging bon mots. With many an arch and insightful comment, Boy celebrates his life after he escapes from his first owner, a brutish farmer, and is adopted by a kindly woman (thereafter called madame) and her ``other half,'' a rather dim-witted soul who is of course Mayle himself. Boy's encounters with wrathful butchers and irate owners of dogs in heat and of treed cats are the high points of this picaresque tale, balanced by his admonitions on how to acquire social polish and communicate effectively with insensitive humans. From his spot under the dining-room table, Boy receives ``a wide ranging, eclectic education,'' learning chiefly that ``the management,'' as he calls his owners, are incorrigible and bibulous party givers. Boy himself proves incorrigible too: in hilarious scenes, he explains how he overestimates human intelligence time and again. While most of the episodes have the ring of truth, those toward the end of this slim volume veer toward farce and bear the marks of having been thought up to pad out the pages. Yet this is a delightful read, augmented by Koren's suitably droll illustrations, and the closing sentence is worthy of inclusion in any quiz about famous last lines. 125,000 first printing; author tour; Random House audio book. (Mar.)

Woof! Woof! After so many books by our two-legged "best friends" that try to decipher our "secret lives", it's so nice to have someone of our kind tell it like it really is. A dog's life can be very a good one indeed, especially if you are as lucky as the hero of our story to find an aimable human companion like Mayle, author of A Year in Provence (LJ 4/1/90), and Hotel Pastis (LJ 9/1/93). In this charming, if at times too cutsey, memoir, Boy, a shaggy but highly intelligent canine of mysterious lineage (we never use the politically incorrect "mutt"), recounts his humble beginnings with his 12 siblings, his abandonment by his mother and later by his unpleasant owner, and his wanderings through the Provençal countryside until he is adopted by the Mayles (an event also recounted in Toujours Provence, LJ 51/1/91). Judging from Edward Koren's drawings, what Boy lacks in devasting good looks is made up by his plucky personality. Canine lovers as well as francophiles and fans of Mayle's books will enjoy this. I give it three paws.-Wilda "Coco Chanel" Williams, "Library Journal"