A brilliantly unfolding story told from the frozen bitterness of the childhood without affection of a 9 year old farm girl in a rural French town, less rather than more Occupied by the conquering Nazi. Treating the pattern of the girl growing into the mother with sensitive brutality, this coming of age tale unravels the truth of the infamous retaliation for the death of an officer. ( )

By the author of Chocolat, another painting of a small town in France. A heartbreaking misunderstanding causes the lives of people. Growing up in France during the German occupation. ( )

Sixty-five-year-old widow Framboise Dartigen returns, under an assumed name, to the French village where she spent her childhood. Having inherited her mother's gift for cooking, she opens a cafe. The novel intertwines this present day story with memories of her childhood, when the village was under Nazi occupation. In return for chocolate and movie magazines, Framboise and her brother and sister collaborated with a young German soldier, Tomas. This dangerous relationship, and Framboise's infatuation with Tomas, provided the catalyst for events that would soon tear the village apart.

Like William Trevor, Harris is good at exploring the nature of small, rural societies where everyone knows everyone else, and their business. Even though Framboise was just a child when she left the village, she fears that she will be judged harshly by the villagers who remember the old days, hence the assumed name. But in spite of the fear of being 'found out', she feels she must live here, and try to unravel the secrets of her mother's journal, a mish-mash of recipes mixed with enigmatic comments, and 'disguised' entries written in a kind of Pig Latin.

She has one ally from the old days, her old friend Paul, who supports Framboise when a young man sets up a snack van in overt competition with her cafe, providing the novel with some comic relief. Framboise must also come to terms with the complicated relationship she had with her mother, which affects the way she relates to her own two daughters.

This is a darker novel than Chocolat and Harris does a good job of showing the reality of occupation through the eyes of children. For them, the war seems a long way away, and the trading of secrets for little black market luxuries is treated almost like a game. This is a finely-balanced, non-judgemental novel, in which many of the characters are unlikeable to varying degrees, but treated with understanding. 'Collaborator' is a highly emotive word, but Harris shows that it wasn't quite a case of 'us' versus 'them', or 'good' versus 'evil' - the reality was rather more complicated and messy, and even mundane. [Feb 2009] ( )

This is a powerful and moving book about tragedy and redemption (at least I think so!). I'm always amazed at novels where children set in motion such catastrophic events. We like to think of children as being innocent - and they are by virtue of their inexperience - but boy, can an innocent do some horrendous things without even realizing it. I enjoyed the structure of this novel - a story within a story - and thought it was done well. ( )

As a Francophile, I read Joanne Harris' "Chocolat" years ago and was disappointed in the rather ordinary depiction of French life in what seemed to me like a book written with an eye on film rights. "Five Quarters of the Orange" is a darker book, better-researched than "Chocolat" and with an accurate portrayal of life in and near Angers in the Loire Valley during German occupation in World War II. The story is told from the viewpoint of a nine-year old girl, Framboise, and follows her family, her older siblings Cassis and Reinette and their neurotic mother through the difficulties of living a rural village life under occupation (one really irritating point for me was the names of the family characters - all named after fruits or nuts). The gossiping and the enmities amongst the villagers are very real, with the hypocrisies concerning collaboration with the Germans highlighting the difficulties that the French must have experienced as they sought to stay alive. It is not really a 'coming-of-age' novel, despite the gradual sensual awakening of Framboise, but there are elements of the pain and loss that growing older brings. The story faltered when recounting the rather silly dispute between the adult Framboise and her nephew - it wasn't needed and slowed the pace. But Joanne Harris has an easy style and her descriptions of the countryside are evocative. There were enough 'secrets' to make the climax gripping and disturbing. ( )