Houseboat on the Seine: A Memoir
From the title, William Wharton'sHouseboat on the Seinesounds like it may be a river-bound version ofPeter Mayle'sA Year in Provence. Not exactly. Before he published his first novel,Birdy, Wharton was a painter and schoolteacher living in Paris. Bad judgment prevailed when he was offered the chance to buy a hulk of a houseboat that had once been the property of an Arctic explorer. Wharton said yes, and soon after, the houseboat sank. Most of the book recounts Wharton's two-decade long effort to first re-float and then rebuild the decrepit vessel.