SOURCE: "Peter Mayle," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 240, No. 41, October 11, 1993, pp. 65-6.

In the essay below, based on an interview with Mayle, Field discusses the author's life and writings.

Peter Mayle looks like Robert Redford—the same boyish face with a geography of lines; the same wire spectacles framing flinty eyes; the wispy blond hair and patient smile. He attributes the abuse he sometimes receives in the British press to envy—"most journalists have some ambition to be writers, and if they see some idiot like me who stumbles over to France and writes a bestseller, they say 'I could have done that book.'" But some of the envy must also arise because, at 53, Mayle still looks more like a golf pro or an actor than a deskbound hack.

He is talking to PW in England, where he has spent most of his life. He went to...