In France Profound - The Long History of a House, a Mountain Town, and a People

From the National Book Award-longlisted author of Finding Florida, a sparkling, sweeping chronicle of the author’s life and discoveries in an ancient town in “Deep France,” from nearby prehistoric caves to medieval dynastic struggles to the colorful characters populating the area today

When T. D. Allman purchased an 800-year-old house in the mountain village of Lauzerte in southwestern France, he aimed to find refuge from the world''s tumults. Instead, he found that humanity’s most telling melodramas, from the paleolithic to the post-modern, were graven in its stones and visible from its windows. 

Indeed, the history of France can be viewed from the perspective of Lauzerte and its surrounding area—just as Allman, from one window, can see Lauzerte unfold before him in the Place des Cornières, where he watches performances of the opera Tosca and each Saturday