The House in France, Gully Wells
The House in France, Gully Wells
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The House in France
A Memoir

Author: Gully Wells

Narrator: Rosalyn Landor

Unabridged: 13 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/21/2011

Synopsis

Set in Provence, London, and New York, this is a daughters wonderfully evocative and witty memoir of her mother and stepfatherDee Wells, the glamorous and rebellious American journalist, and A. J. Ayer, the celebrated and worldly Oxford philosopherand the life they lived at the center of absolutely everything. Gully Wells takes us into the heart of Londons liberated intellectual inner circle of the 1960s. Here are Alan Bennett, Isaiah Berlin, Iris Murdoch, Bertrand Russell, Jonathan Miller, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens, Robert Kennedy, and later in New York, Mayor Lindsay and Mike Tyson, her mother as a television commentator earning a reputation for her outspoken style and progressive views, her stepfatheran icon in the world of twentiethcentury philosophyproving himself as prodigious a womanizer as he was a thinker. And throughout, there is La Migoua, the house in France, on a hill between Toulon and Marseilles, where her parents and their friends came together and where Gully herself learned some of the longlasting lessons of a life well lived. This is a dazzling portrait of a woman who caught the spirit of the sixties and one of the most important intellectual figures of the twentieth century, drawn from the vivid memory of the child who adored them both.

About Gully Wells

Gully Wells was born in Paris, brought up in London, educated at Oxford, and moved to New York in 1979. She is the features editor of Condé Nast Traveler magazine. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children. The House in France is her first book.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter on July 07, 2011

I absolutely adored this witty, worldly memoir about bad people having a good time in the wacky 1960s. Sex, adultery, illegitimacy, food, wine, celebrity (lots and lots), drugs and just the right dose of the divine South of France in the summer heat. It doesn't depend on knowing who all these comic......more

Goodreads review by Beth on June 28, 2017

Gully Wells - a features editor at Conde Nast Traveler magazine, and the product of Oxford and a highly privileged, well-connected upbringing - writes well, with humour and a vivid voice. The subject of this memoir is ostensibly her mother Dee Wells, but it ends up being a series of colourful 'snaps......more

Goodreads review by WB1 on July 02, 2011

I wanted to like this book a lot. It's essentially a memoir of Gully Wells, growing up in London, the daughter of Dee Wells, an American writer in the 60's and 70's. Dee Wells was flamboyant, funny, smart and, in the end, kind of mysterious. Gully Wells's stepfather was the philosopher, A.J. Ayer. Th......more

Goodreads review by Margo on March 24, 2020

I enjoy this biography when it’s light, evocative and full of food and recipes. Unfortunately, Wells tries to delve into deeper topics such as poverty and 9/11 she just has such a vague handle on them as to sound facetious. I really wish they’d cut those out and made it super light reading all the way......more

Goodreads review by Sylvia on October 06, 2019

The kind of book I thoroughly enjoy. Certainly not for goody-two shoes. Funny, sad, delightful and real. I'm adding more to this review later.......more

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