SOURCE: "The Souse of France," in The New York Times Book Review, October 17, 1993, p. 11.

Kraft is an American editor and novelist. Below, he provides a favorable review of Hotel Pastis.

Here [in Hotel Pastis] we have the story of a man who abandons dreary London for sunny Provence. Peter Mayle has told a similar story before, of course, but this time out he's written a novel, not a memoir like Toujours Provence or A Year in Provence, so the protagonist of Hotel Pastis is not Peter Mayle but Simon Shaw, a prosperous advertising executive. In the aftermath of his second divorce, Simon is a man suffering from "too many lunches, too many meetings," from "jet lag and bad temper"; he is, in short, a man who needs a vacation. Ernest, Simon's valet, personal assistant, confidant and cook, suggests a few days in the south of France, and Simon...