We edge a little closer to the next set of lights. In cafés, waiters are serving apéritifs to early customers. A man on a bicycle sneaks past us along the curb, baguettes sticking straight up like unwieldy arrows from the quiver of his backpack…I could touch some of them if I reached out. Maybe they would shiver, feeling a little frisson as my fingers grazed a wrist, and mutter about someone walking over their grave, but I am sure they would not be able to see me, even though I am here, inching along beside them, circling Orange forever in a purgatorial daze, because I have been to Avignon, and I haven’t come back yet.

Doors can keep things out, or hold things in. Above all, they offer possibilities, at least until you find the key. Any one of them might be the door back into a lost Eden.

What the critics say:

Thompson brings a poetic newness to the places she visits, sprinkled with friendly and insightful reflections on the people there and how their lives and priorities differ from ours here in Canada…

Thompson’s book humbly allows you to reflect on the beauty in your own life. She confesses that ‘there can be wisdom in the consideration of the most ordinary, mundane details.’ But there is nothing mundane about her prose. On the contrary, it’s a delight to read.

Heather Neale; The Georgia Straight Aug. 26 – Sept. 2, 2004

Thompson has a wonderful eye for details.

Thompson is acutely aware of her status as tourist… ‘In the way of such visits our expectations are overwhelmed and enlarged by unanticipated subtleties, contradictions and surprises.’

Which pretty much sums up Knocking on the Moonlit Door. Whether Thompson is noticing the vast emptiness of the papal palace in Avignon, or the sense of guilty escape a long flight from England creates, the subtleties of place are the heart of the book…

Thompson is very much an ordinary tourist, looking, like the rest of us, for a village unspoilt, a bit of the myth of the Civilized European, an escape from ice and fog. Unlike the rest of us, Thompson is also a gifted writer who takes the day-to-day events of her journeys and transmutes them to bigger stories.

Jay Currie; “An Acutely Aware Tourist”; The Ottawa Citizen, June 19, 2004

Her reflections as she and her husband meander through France, Italy and Greece are personal without being indulgent and gentle. She’s the kind of companion who doesn’t just comment on the architecture and food, but wonders how the plane’s fuselage is held together, and observes unspoken relationships among fellow travellers. She makes a great guide for those who like to meander and ponder the quiet details of a trip.

Alison Gzowski; “Pack Your Mind”; The Globe and Mail, November 8, 2004