The First Book Genre That Will Suffer Because Of Brexit

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I've finished L'Amour Actually by Melanie Jones,the book I borrowed from Pyle Library about a woman moving to France. As I was reading it the thought struck me that, due to Brexit, this genre is under threat.

Because, to speak generally, it belongs to that type of book where someone/a family from Britain moves abroad because of the daily pressure of life there to somewhere Mediterranean, suffers bad weather and other hardships whilst still gently mocking at local customs, finds themselves growing something impossible in Britain (eg olives) or raising animals before adapting to their new country where the weather turns bright as they expected and finding at the end a combination of love/satisfaction/self fulfilment/happiness.

Now of course this is the basic tenplate and there are variations to the model. At it's best it can be inspiring at its (often) worst smug ("Look at me I'm growing Lemons!") but in the post Brexit world the ability of Britons to do this unless they're rich or have some exceptional talent will be severely, if not totally cut.Indeed there is a slight, but nonetheless real possibility that British people living in other EU countries already will have to move back to the UK depending on the outcome of negotiations.

I have sympathy for these people (aside from those who write smug books) though I don't like the term "ex pats". You should call them what they are: immigrants. Let me stress here I've no problem with immigration subject to certain safeguards (particularly about security) but I won't bore you by going into detail here. What I don't like is the use of a word to imply that if you're British living abroad you are somehow different than if you were, say, Polish.

The point here though is that there would be very few people who would want to read these books if Brexit, particularly hard Brexit occurs? Why inflict literary pain on yourself  if you were longed for this by reading this sort of book knowing that the chances of reaching your ambitions had been cut drastically? Those of us who voted Remain but have no wish to move from Britain would have no interest by looking wistfully at books written before the current age of anger. As for those who voted Leave? Well for some of them their only interest would probably be to want to try the authors in absentia for being unpatriotic.

To be specific now L'Amour Actually is, according to the internet, a mixture of fact and fiction. Something I didn't know when I borrowed it out of the library and which the cover doesn't make clear. I think I can work out what the fiction bits are though. The cover is very Chick Lit and so I'd argue are the fiction parts which is of no interest to a fifty two year old man like me.

It does however explain the problems of moving into another country well. Also though gently mocking the French she equally mocks the British ex pat community and to her credit herself/the narrator (depending on which stage it's fact or fiction).

So if you're a male don't read it. Unless that is your wife is French so you'll be able to get into France that way if you fancied living there.

Until the next time.