From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble Review
From Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat, comes another highly palatable saga of complex human relationships and the sometimes twisted vagaries of love. In Five Quarters of the Orange, Harris tells a haunting story of dark secrets and bitter tragedy in a tale that simmers its way to a roiling boil.
Sixty-three-year-old Framboise Dartigen returns incognito to the tiny French village where she lived as a child, in order to confront a horrific tragedy that occurred 55 years earlier during the German occupation -- a tragedy that implicated her family and still haunts the town to this day. Back then, while her widowed mother struggled to make a living from her fruit farm, Framboise and her siblings befriended a German soldier who provided them with treats in exchange for tidbits of information. Then a seemingly innocent series of events snowballed into a horrifying tragedy -- the truth of which is hidden (mingled with hundreds of family recipes) in a scrapbook her mother has bequeathed to her. Now, as that truth is about to surface, Framboise must expose painful family secrets and face the facts of her own complicity.
Harris digs deep into the complex fabric of family relationships, deftly contrasting the innocence of a young girl’s dreams with her capability for cruelty. This tantalizing mix of intrigue and betrayal makes for a sensual and sumptuous literary feast. (Beth Amos)
From the Publisher
Returning to the small Loire village of her childhood, Framboise Dartigen is relived when no one recognizes her. Decades earlier, during the German occupation, her family was driven away because of a tragedy that still haunts the town.
Framboise has come back to run a little cafe serving the recipes her mother recorded in a scrapbook. But when her cooking receives national attention, her anonymity begins to shatter. Seeking answers, Framboise begins to see ther her mother's scrapbook is more than it seems. Hidden among the recipes for crepes and liquors are clues that will lead Framboise to the truth of long ago.
Philadelphia Inquirer
[Harris's] prose reads like poetry, and it is a physical experience to fall into her imagery.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Compelling . . . Harris once again revels in the smells and tastes of French food.
New York Times Book Review
Unexpectedly sweet and powerful.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The craftsmanship and emotional power of this novel...place Ms. Harris in the forefront of women writers.
Book Magazine
It's a good thing Harris enjoys writing about food. The attention surrounding Chocolat, her novel that was adapted into an award-winning film, will likely send readers to the shelves in search of another magical narrative incorporating lovingly-prepared delicacies. The story of Framboise Dartigen (the character's siblings are also named for various edibles and spices) begins with this sixtysomething woman returning to the French village where she was raised, and where dark secrets that only she knows are buried. Armed with a prized cookbook willed to her by her temperamental mother (it is the memento that identifies her as the favorite child), Dartigen opens up a creperie, which provides the author with plenty of opportunity to describe a lush variety of delectable edibles. Beyond her evocative descriptions of paella antillaise and dried apricot clafoutis, Harris' absorbing, well-crafted novel is ultimately the story of a woman coming to terms with her past.
—Mimi O'Connor
(Excerpted Review)
Publishers Weekly
If Harris's previous novel, Chocolat, was an adorably sweet morsel of French village lore, then this, her third, is a richer, more complex dessert wine. Still using her arsenal of culinary metaphors, quirky characters and slightly surreal incidents, Harris presents a complicated but beautiful tale involving misfortune, mystery and intense family relations. Framboise Dartigen, a feisty yet sensitive girl, grew up in a gossip-ridden hamlet on the banks of the Loire called Les Laveuses. Striving for attention and power, nine-year-old Framboise (or Boise, to her family) took to playing nasty tricks on her headstrong, mentally vulnerable mother, Mirabelle, who had a weakness for oranges. And it was not the usual affliction Mirabelle actually experienced "spells" (akin to epileptic fits) if she even smelled the fruit. But despite Framboise's girlish pranks, Mirabelle's maternal instinct was strong. When her children befriended German soldiers who were in the village during the World War II occupation, things went awry, and mother and children were forced to flee. As Framboise tells the tale, she's in her 60s and has returned to Les Laveuses, posing as a widow named Fran oise Simon. When the caf she owns is reviewed in a national food magazine, her cover is blown and the past resurfaces. Harris has constructed a multilayered plot, punctuated with scrumptious descriptions of French delicacies and telling depictions of the war's jolting effects on one fragile family. This intense work brims with sensuality and sensitivity. (May) Forecast: Given Chocolat's brilliant success in print and on screen, this book will have no trouble attracting attention. Whether the previous book's readers are ready for this more serious novel is questionable, however. Harris, who lives in England, will make appearances in six U.S. cities in early June. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Tragedy, revenge, suspicion, and love are the ingredients for the latest offering from the author of the acclaimed Chocolat. Framboise Dartigen recounts what happened in her tiny village of Les Laveuses during the German occupation and why after carrying the secret for more than 55 years she hid her identity upon returning. Beset by wartime privations, the people of Les Laveuses were a mixture of resistance fighters, collaborators, and financial opportunists. When a German soldier died mysteriously, townspeople were executed, and Framboise's mother was tortured and driven out by her neighbors, who believed that she had collaborated. Only her children knew the truth, and now Framboise, the sole survivor, has come back to claim the family farm and run a little cr perie featuring her mother's recipes. In the album she inherited from her mother are not only her recipes and mementos but also clues to what really happened so long ago. Like the oranges whose fragrance so tortured Framboise's mother, the ending is bittersweet, and readers will love it. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/01.] Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Framboise Dartigen relates this story from her point of view as a nine-year-old and as a woman in her 60s. She spent her childhood in a Nazi-occupied French village with her widowed mother and siblings. Knowing that the scent of oranges brought on her mother's severe migraines, Framboise was clever enough or devious enough to hoard orange peel for her own advantage. During their unsupervised play, the children met a young Nazi soldier and were captivated by his charm and the black-market gifts that he gave them. Years later, Framboise, now a widow herself, returns to the village on a quest for the truth about her family's role in a tragic event for which her mother bore the blame and was forced by the townspeople to flee. Framboise inherited her mother's journal, and soon learns that the past and the present are intertwined. Harris has woven a dark, complex story of a dysfunctional family in stressful times. As in the author's Chocolat (Viking, 2000), mother and, later, daughter are gifted cooks whose love of food and cooking shows in the wonderful descriptions of bread, cake, fruit, wine, olives, etc. A picture of life in an occupied territory emerges in which collaborators, resisters, enemies, friends, and family members live in the same area, going about their daily routines. Harris's fans will not be disappointed; her attention to detail, vivid description, and strong characterization are all in this book, too.-Carol Clark, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An overwrought and often contrived tale with one too many characters named after food. When elderly widow Françoise Simon returns to the sleepy village on the Loire where she grew up, she's grateful that no one recognizes her after all these years as Framboise Dartigen, daughter of a woman suspected of collaboration during WWII. Framboise sets up a small crêperie and keeps her silence, whiling away the time by studying the immense scrapbook her mother, Mirabelle, left to her. This crumbling but fascinating volume is crammed with recipes, clippings, and handwritten notes in a peculiar code, which she gradually deciphers. Framboise is forced to relive her own central role in the long-ago scandal as the youngest of three children who eagerly take small luxuries like chocolate and silk stockings from the occupying German soldiers, offering in exchange information that can be used to blackmail the villagers. Framboise befriends Tomas Liebniz, youngest and best-looking of the soldiers, and confides her desire to catch Old Mother, an enormous pike lurking in the depths of the Loire. He provides fishing tackle and advice, as well as a means of getting around her disapproving mother. Mirabelle suffers from excruciatingly painful migraines, which can be triggered by the scent of oranges. Tomas gives one to the nasty little girl, who saves the peel and uses its pungent smell to repeatedly incapacitate her mother. Only morphine—now impossible to obtain—eases the pain, and despite her hatred for the Germans who shot and killed her husband, Mirabelle too turns to clever Tomas, who procures it for her. After his accidental death by drowning and a bloody shooting rampage byGerman soldiers, the Dartigens face the wrath of the townsfolk . . . . Harris (Chocolat, 1999) is capable of elegantly sensual writing, but Five Quarters degenerates into melodrama all too soon. Author tour
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