Interest in French village life was originally inspired by Laurence Wylie who was one of his mentors and teachers when a student at Harvard. Wylie's Village in the Vaucluse was the primary source for a course on French village life that Sturges taught at Andover for twenty years. The People of Pleure: Portrait of a French Village is the outgrowth of a winter sabbatical spent in a little-known part of the Jura. Pleure is France. It is a village like so many others, with real people of all ages who struggle to survive. The People of Pleure is the story of Sturges' life among these people.
