In the idyllic French countryside, an American wine expert tries to save his view and rescue his best friend.

Kendrick Thomas, a 40-something American living in the south of France, seems to have an idyllic life. Like the author, he’s in the wine business, importing French and other European vintages to the United States. He lives in a former farmhouse with stunning views of the countryside, wide blue skies, and glimpses of the Mediterranean. He spends his time traveling to wineries to taste their wares, taking siestas, and hanging out and cooking with his friend Henri Poupon, a local winemaker. Kendrick values beauty above all, but he fears it’s losing out to greed in the form of modern conveniences, excessive development, and tourism. Worse, a series of annoying difficulties threatens to disrupt his comfortable life. First, when he pays a routine tasting visit to one of his long-standing suppliers in Alsace, they unexpectedly threaten to stop doing business with him unless he accepts impossible terms. Then an obnoxious and unpopular neighbor, who’s already cut down all his trees and built an eyesore of a house, plans to install a hideous cellphone tower on his property, ruining the view. And Poupon, who fancies himself a ladies’ man, is juggling two girlfriends. How will he manage to address these problems without hurting his friend or disrupting his carefully cultivated lifestyle? Lynch honed his craft describing wines, and this is a book where words that might seem pretentious or silly on a label—for example, “It’s ample, but not at all flabby”—come across as perfectly natural dialogue in context. His writing is vivid with a touch of snark; a man’s bristly mustache “could be used to clean his boots or scrub a burnt skillet,” a utilitarian car is “an automotive version of soviet architecture.” The detailed depictions of wine, food, and landscapes evoke deep sensory pleasure, and nonexpert readers will learn something about wine. The action, however, seems almost incidental.

A fun, atmospheric novel set in beautiful Provence, where wine aficionados provide more atmosphere than plot. —Kirkus Reviews

Coming September 30

At Poupon’s Table
A NOVEL BY KERMIT LYNCH

To read an excerpt and
pre-order the book, visit
shop.kermitlynch.com/poupon