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Jon Henley of the Guardian newspaper wrote concerning Wadham’s book the Secret Life of France that "her central thesis - that France is more about the pursuit of great and abstract ideas such as beauty, pleasure and nobility than such uninspiring Protestant notions as rigor, conscience and duty, that it prefers abstract notions to uncomfortable truths, and that the country and its history are therefore tuned permanently to a tragic register - rings true. The French, after all, don’t do comedy; they do wit."

Lucy Wadham .was born in London in 1964 and educated at Oxford. She lives in France with her four children. Lost, her first novel, was published in 2000 was shortlisted for the Macallan Gold Dagger Award. The second novel, Castro’s Dream (2003), about the Basque terrorist movement, ETA is set in the Basque Country.

Click to listen to what Lucy thinks about France.

The Secret Life pf France is Wadham’s insider’s view of a nation that many think are incompatible with many others nationalities, however she also thinks the French are often and repeatedly misunderstood. In "The Secret Life of France", takes us through the French mindset for rationing morality, and savoring what they perceive as rational logic. While examining French attitudes to a range of subjects from marriage and adultery to work and race relations, Wadham begins to nip and tuck away at the cliches so that we can gain insight and a little more understanding of the French and what we can learn from them.

In the review by John Lichfield of the Independent he writes, "Why are the French a nation of individuals who all insist on doing the same thing, individually? Why do the French have a teenage relationship with the state, constantly rebelling but still expecting their washing to be done for them? Why do the French have better and more sex than we do but also take more tranquillizers and have one of the highest suicide rates in Europe (more than double the UK)?

"You might ask," she writes, "why – in a society where the quality of life seems to be superior, where fertility and life expectancy and literacy are higher, where the crime rate is lower and teenage pregnancies fewer – so many people want to kill themselves." Wadham does not come close to the final answers to any of these questions: no one could. She does, however, take us further along the road than most.

She concludes that there is an elemental tragedy– itself a very French notion - at the core of French life. What makes the French miserable is also what makes them French. The French, she suggests, are driven by pleasure and beauty and nobility. They have an enormous capacity for abstraction. They love ideas and wit but distrust self-mocking humor. The ideal is always more important than reality; beauty is more important than truth.

These are the qualities that create the French capacity for the art de vivre. The same qualities destroy their joie de vivre. Life is never quite as perfect as the French insist that, in theory, it should be."