Summary:
Provence, May 1889. The hospital of Saint-Paul-de Mausole is home to the mentally ill. An old monastery, it sits at the foot of Les Alpilles mountains among wheat fields, herbs, and olive groves. For years, the fragile have come here and lived quietly, finding rest behind the shutters and high, sun-baked walls. Tales of the new arrival - his savagery, his paintings, his copper-red hair - quickly reach the warden's wife. From her small white cottage, Jeanne Trabuc watches him - how he sets his easel among the trees, the irises, and the fields of wheat, painting in the heat of the day. Jeanne knows the rules; she knows not to approach the patients at Saint-Paul. But this man - paint-smelling, dirty, troubled, and intense - is, she thinks, worth talking to. So, ignoring her husband's wishes and the dangers, despite the word mad, Jeanne climbs over the hospital wall. She will find that the painter will change all their lives. Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew is a beautiful novel about the repercussions of longing, loneliness, and passion for life. But it's also about love - and how it alters over time.
From the author:
Susan Fletcher was born in 1979 in Birmingham. She is the author of the bestselling Eve Green (winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award), Oystercatchers, and Witch Light - and most recently, the much-lauded Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew.