In Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris returns to the small-town, postwar France of Chocolat. This time she follows the fortunes of Framboise Dartigan, named for a raspberry but with the disposition of, well, a lemon. The proprietor of a café in a rustic village, this crabby old lady recalls the days of her childhood, which coincided with the German occupation. Back then, she and her brother and sister traded on the black market with the Germans, developing a friendship with a charismatic young soldier named Tomas. This intrigue provided a distraction from their grim home life--their father was killed in the war and their mother was a secretive, troubled woman. Yet their relationship with Tomas led to a violent series of events that still torment the aging Framboise.

Harris has a challenging project here: to show the complicated, messy reality behind such seemingly simple terms as collaborator and Resistance. To the children, of course, these were mere abstractions: "We understood so little of it. Least of all the Resistance, that fabulous quasi-organization. Books and the television made it sound so focused in later years; but I remember none of that. Instead I remember a mad scramble in which rumor chased counter-rumor and drunkards in cafes spoke loudly against the new regime." The author's portrait of occupier and occupied living side by side is given texture by her trademark appreciation of all things French. Yes, some passages read like romantic, black-and-white postcards: "Reine's bicycle was smaller and more elegant, with high handlebars and a leather saddle. There was a bicycle basket across the handlebars in which she carried a flask of chicory coffee." But these simple pleasures, recorded with such adroitness, are precisely what give Framboise solace from the torment of her past. --Claire Dederer


From 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, VACopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From 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.- Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Fans of the author's CHOCOLAT will be delighted to find her back in France, with a tale infused with the names, fragrances, even the recipes Framboise prepares in her creperie in the town of Les Laveuses on the Loire. She has returned to the village where she grew up after many years' absence, depending on no one's recognizing her as the daughter of a presumed (and despised) Nazi collaborator. There is much that strains credulity here, yet the writing is lush and persuasive; the performance by Diana Bishop is impeccable and delightful. B.G. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
The past isn't gone, or even past, in this wrenching narrative, where every sensation is perfectly delineated, from the poisonous prick of childhood guilt to the swoon of surrender before a ripe berry tart--sensation as talisman. Writing from the restored Loire farmhouse where she grew up and lives under an assumed identity, 65-year-old Framboise recounts her life. Memories of the World War II Resistance remain, and her family's name is still despised. The story of why unfolds like a crab-apple blossom, and the tart, living fruit puckers the memory even while it nourishes. Framboise is too like her silent, taut mother, whose migraines are always preceded by the scent of oranges. Framboise uses that knowledge in the terrible way of children, to wrest a bit of freedom and control even though that means meeting with the German soldier who has enchanted her siblings and herself. That story weaves itself around the tale's present, where Framboise tries to divine her mother's notebook of recipes and jottings as if she were reading entrails. She tries to keep those luscious recipes and cryptic phrases from the hands of a dissembling nephew, for they protect secrets she is keeping, even from herself. There's not a moment of slackness in the perfectly wrought prose: light, heat, cold, softness, and, above all, the texture and shape and scent of bread and cake, fruit and wine, thyme and olive--all of these come off the page like the musk of desire. Darker than Chocolat (1999), Harris' first novel, and without a trace of the sentimentality that softened Blackberry Wine (2000), Harris' latest will strike the readers as a far more complex vintage. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


New York Times Book Review
"Unexpectedly sweet and powerful."


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."


Richmond Times-Dispatch
"The craftsmanship and emotional power of this novel...place Ms. Harris in the forefront of women writers."


Publishers Weekly
"This intense work brims with sensuality and sensitivity.... Beautiful."


Library Journal (starred review)
"Tragedy, revenge, suspicion and love are the ingredients for [Harris's] latest offering…Readers will love it."


Booklist (starred review)
"There's not a moment of slackness in the perfectly wrought prose."


Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Compelling . . . Harris once again revels in the smells and tastes of French food."


Book Description
In her bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Chocolat, Joanne Harris told a lush story of the conflicts between pleasure and repression. Now she delivers her most complex and sophisticated work yet, an unforgettable tale of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting and succumbing -- an extraordinary work of fiction lined with darkness and fierce joy.When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation years ago. But the past and present are inextricably entwined, particularly in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise has inherited from her mother. And soon Framboise will realize that the journal also contains the key to the tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year....


About the Author
Joanne Harris is the author of the critically acclaimed novels BlackberryWine and Chocolat, which was nominated for the Whitbread Award, one of Britain's most prestigious literary prizes. Half French and half British, Harris lives in England.

FROM OUR EDITORS

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￯﾿ﾽs dreams with her capability for cruelty. This tantalizing mix of intrigue and betrayal makes for a sensual and sumptuous literary feast. (Beth Amos)

ANNOTATION

The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris's most complex and sophisticated work yet. A novel in which darkness and fierce joy come together to create an unforgettable story.

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.

SYNOPSIS

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.

FROM THE CRITICS

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