A01=Richard Townsend
Author_Richard Townsend
Bill Bryson
Category=FBA
Category=FT
Category=WTLC
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_travel
family strife
family succession
Peter Mayle
sherry
wine
wine-making
Product details
- ISBN 9781908291905
- Publication Date: 28 Nov 2022
- Publisher: Chiselbury Publishing
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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'Spanish Practices' weaves together nearly half a century of observations by Rico, an Englishman married into an eccentric family in a left-behind corner of Spain. Among others, we meet Macu, the maiden aunt who runs the family wine business with an iron fist and controls the family purse-strings; mother-in-law Mami, whose sons can do no wrong, except when they do; brother-in-law Chus, who has a loose interpretation of the marriage vows and a dangerous weakness for the bottle; and younger brother-in-law Sancho, who becomes pivotal to the family's succession battles and their struggles with the local rival winery.
Initially an outsider, Rico is drawn ever deeper into the family mire as well as facing, with his wife Marina, his own fraught relationships with neighbours, local planning laws and the busy body 'Authorities'.
Through the interplay of rivalries, conflicts and vicissitudes 'Spanish Practices' illuminates the idiosyncrasies of Spanish ways and exemplifies the travails of a society in the throes of wholesale transformation.
Richard is a linguist and historian by training who ended up as a self-employed adviser to private companies on their financial and other affairs. This is his first novel.
