CHÂTEAU STRAY

by Gregory Edmont

 

     Welcome to the incredible world of Château Stray—an animal rescue (le Château des Egarés) in the bucolic countryside of southern France founded by an eccentric breeder of Dalmatians, Madame Clix. Gregory Edmont first met "Bonbon", as Madame is also known, when she begrudgingly let him, an American student in Paris at the time, adopt JP, a 7-week-old puppy ... and her own pick of the litter. Two years after that, in response to Bonbon’s desperate plea and with JP perched on the footrest of his Vespa motor scooter, he rode from Paris to Provence so that JP could render his procreative services “de toute urgence!” That journey was chronicled in his travelogue, Spotted in France (Lyons Press).

     In Château Stray, Greg and JP have returned four years later to find Bonbon—barely recovered from the loss of her prized breeding dogs in a tragic fire—further devastated when JP’s daughter, Lily-Rose, the last female in the Clix Dalmatians’ lineage, does not give birth to the blue-blooded litter Bonbon had intended (but rather a litter of "Dalmadors") ... a calamity that charts the fall of her pedigree dynasty and opens a new chapter in her life.  Greg and JP settle into an old water mill on the grounds, and with their help—and that of Padre, the affable and unorthodox village priest who had ceremoniously married Bonbon’s dogs before she’d allow them to breed; and Anna-Maria, her loyal yet free-thinking housekeeper, a confirmed “cat person”—Bonbon converts her property into a haven for unwanted strays of all stripes (and species). Soon the place is overflowing with new four- (and sometimes two-) legged friends. In the process, Bonbon discovers the real value of family (whether by blood or by choice) and, finally, in the twilight of her life, the power of human love that had evaded her.

     Château Stray is more than a slice of French life or a dog tale: it is a funny, gripping and poignant story of the loves, secrets and destinies of rich and unforgettable characters.

     And, of course, JP still roams the French Riviera and back roads of Provence on the footrest of Greg’s Vespa, sometimes with a new passenger perched on his back: the outspoken Fred, an abandoned parrot who also comes to call the château home.