3 Review(s)

A sweeping tale of a boyhood in Provence. Although Jean Giono wrote over fifty volumes of fiction, poems, and plays, and attracted such fervent fans as Henry Miller, his work is not as well-known in America as it deserves to be. Blue Boy, which follows Counterpoint's reissue of The Joy of Man's Desiring, will bring Giono back into the American spotlight. A fictionalized autobiography of his boyhood in the countryside of Provence, told through the eyes of a child, Blue Boy is written with the mystical style that marks Giono's greatest work. On the surface a simple tale of a village cobbler and his young son, this novel explores a complex interlocking, a cyclic ebb and flow, that sets the stage for the young boy's passage from innocence to sensuality.