FRENCH CONNECTION

A NORTH CAROLINA NOVELIST ON BOOK TOUR OVERSEAS DISCOVERS THAT CATFISH ARE THE TIES THAT BIND

By DAVID JOY

MATTHIEU RAVARI STANDS ON THE TRAIN STATION PLATFORM IN ALBI WITH A CIGARETTE DANGLING FROM THE CORNER OF HIS MOUTH AND MY NAME SCRIBBLED ON A SCRAP OF TORN PAPER. I raise my hand and he half smiles, welcoming me in broken English. Darkly tanned and tired eyed, he leads my translator and me to a beat-up SUV, where he shovels tackle and trash out of the seats to make room for us. Bait buckets rest on the floorboards. Open maps and food wrappers are strewn across the dash. I’ve been in France on book tour for nearly two weeks, and this is the first familiar sight I’ve seen. My translator and I had caught the train from Bordeaux at 4:00 a.m. and still did not reach Albi until midmorning.…

You're reading a preview of

Garden & Gun (Digital) - 1 Issue, October/November 2023

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.