If you are looking for a fun, comical read this spring, “Keeping up With Camille” by local author Benjamin Walker might be just what you are looking for.
Departing from his penchant for historical fiction, Walker decided to write a contemporary novel set in France.
The story revolves around Hill Bentley (Binky) Pinkerton, a little-known American academic author who is visiting Paris to add the finishing touches to a biography about Gustave Flaubert. While there, he encounters a lovely young French woman, Camille, who has an affinity for fast cars. Though suspicious of her intentions since he is decades older than she is, he agrees to accompany her to an auction of exotic sports cars.
From there an unlikely whirlwind romance and romp around France begins where they encounter many wonderful and hilarious characters. At the same time, Binky is relentlessly pursued by another woman his own age who wants to marry him while Camille is pursued by younger men. Will their relationship survive?
Walker writes characters in such a way that you can visualize them easily and you feel as if you are experiencing their adventures and mishaps with them. Readers will laugh out loud at the audacity of many of them or fall in love with the naivety of others.
The story takes the reader on trips to various locations in France.
“It's more like a tourist-eye view of France than my previous novel, ‘When the Old World Was New,’ because my main character is not familiar with the country,” said Walker.
Walker said it took him about nine months to write “Keeping up With Camille.” This book is different from his others because there wasn’t as much research needed, and he didn’t spend time creating an outline beforehand. He started with the chance encounter of a May/December romance and just ran with it.
“I actually think it turned out to be a better constructed book than most of my previous novels,” said Walker. “But I don't know, I have to leave that up to others to judge how well put together it is. I just wrote as things came to me and I tried to keep it within the limits of the main characters and the main story. There aren’t a lot of digressions.”
The book has a great deal of French in it, but the response from the other characters usually makes it easy to understand — and if not, readers might learn a little French in the process.
“Keeping up With Camille” is available on Amazon.com.
Walker is also the author of seven other novels including “Sentimental Music,” “Winds of the South,” “An Island in the South,” “Return of the Native Son,” “Children at the Gate,” “Kremlin-by-the-Sea” and “When the Old World Was New.”
Walker, who lives in Jacksonville, is a graduate of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, as well as San Francisco State University, where he received an M.A. degree in creative writing.
Walker has a book signing lined up at the Book Loft in Fernandina on April 12 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Future book signings will be posted on his website, www.jaminpress.com.
For more information contact: Benjamin Walker at Benjaminpwalker@bellsouth.net.
