Book review: The Secret Life of France

There is a genre in British publishing which could be called 'froglit'," said John Lichfield in the Independent: "the obsessive psychoanalysis or mockery of our nearest and dearest neighbours." But Lucy Wadham's "elegant, measured book" is far better than the usual works of "comic exaggeration" (A Year in the Merde) and "comic romanticisation" (A Year in Provence). "To understand the French, she went to the trouble of marrying a Frenchman, living in France for 22 years and raising four French children." She "remains rather British but has also become very French", veering "between sweeping generalisation and penetrating insight (French) and wonderful anecdote and dry observation (English)". She is very sharp, pointing out, for instance, that the French have a teenage relationship with the state – always rebelling but still expecting their washing to be done.

Wadham got "the same shocks I did when I moved to France", said Janine di Giovanni in the Observer: "the horror of French women when you want to breast-feed your baby"; the lack of "sisterhood" among them, because they tend to regard each other as potential rivals. She grapples with the French tradition of libertinage – "We don't do divorce in this family," her cuckolded, humiliated mother-in-law explains. She laughs off a friend of her husband who proposes she become his mistress, but finds herself much more shocked by her husband's response: "I would hope if it happened you would not tell me." The Secret Life of France "is, in many ways, enchanting. My only regret is that it tries to do too many things at once" – Wadham intersperses her own story with some rather woolly historical and political reflections. Even so, "I wish I had read it six years ago when I moved here. I would have had a much easier time of it."

The Secret Life of France by Lucy Wadham, Faber, 266pp, £12.99. The Week Bookshop £11.69 (including p&p)