Blackberry Wine: A Novel (original 2000; edition 2001)

The first time I tried to read Blackberry Wine apparently wasn't the right time to try to read this book. This time, though, I read it practically all in one go -- with, yeah, a glass of wine. Joanne Harris' prose is always easy to read, really clear, and I can believe in the characters she creates at least enough to carry on to the very last page. Joe, in particular, rang true with me: a miner's son, a gardener, a Yorkshire lad... Jay, perhaps not as much, particularly not at the beginning, but yes, enough that I cared what happened to him.

I love the everyday magic that Joanne Harris' characters work. Just normal enough that you can believe it's true for a while. Just close enough to coincidence or wishful thinking that if you can't step over into fantasy, you don't have to.

I don't think I'm likely to reread any of Joanne Harris' books: I guess to me they're a bit like chocolate, or a bottle of wine. You can only have the experience once. But I do greatly enjoy them, and will be sad when there are no more that I can read. ( )

The protagonist of this story is really the old man, "Jackapple Joe" Cox, although the main character Jay is the driving force of the story. Jackapple is an old man full of stories, just strange enough to be believable, who is odd enough and lonely enough to recognize a kindred spirit in the young teenager, who appears suddenly on a whim, staring at him over a brick wall in the most unlikely of places: Pog Hill Lane. It is a relationship story between the old man and the young man and is based upon trust or lack of it, really. The story jumps between the mid 1970's in England in a mining town near the slag heaps & a railroad line and the late 1999's in France on small farm Jay has purchased on a whim.

My first novel by the author of Chocolat and I have to say I enjoyed it far more than expected.

The story of Jay Mackintosh, a 37 years old writer, famous because of an only novel written fifteen years ago. Jay seems to have lost inspiration and faith in the magic of life, as if all these feelings had been spent in that successful novel.
The novel moves forward and backwards in time, and the reader is able to know young Jay, when he meets Joe, an eccentric old man who leaves a deep impression in lonely Jay, becoming his special friend and his secret hideaway.
Home brewed wine made by Joe takes unusual importance in the present time of the story, because it's only when Jay drinks it that he finds the courage to change what makes him unhappy. Guided by a kind of Joe's ghost, Jay leaves London and moves to a little rural village in France where he buys an abandoned farm and where he starts writing again, inspired by his mysterious neighbour, Marisa.

This is a book about haunted lives, unfinished stories and the chance to change your own life and atone for your past mistakes.
Magic, wine, faith or simply luck and coincidence. Choose your own explanation.
I'll stick to the magic and a bit of luck, as Jay says.
It's only a matter of not losing hope completely and let others surprise you, with one foot in the Earth and the other one suspended in the air, letting the wind blow where it has to.

Refreshing, heartening and uplifting reading. Great for dreamers and romantics. ( )

This is my favorite of the Joanne Harris books I've read. I read Chocolate; then Five Quarters of the Orange; then this book. I found all to be dark and quirky as they tell the tale of ordinary people whose lives are affected by exotic people or circumstances...in this case the most notable is the "talking" wine. This is a tale of the low places in life...places people don't want to be...places not to be recalled happily. We follow the main character, Jay, in his quirky childhood experiences and into his choice to uproot himself from a stagnate urban life without the hope for a future - it is almost just a different setting in which to be stagnant. Jay's dark life changes slowly with no great effort on his part as he becomes aware of a world outside of himself. On the "dark & quirky" scale - Five Quarters is off the chart; Chocolate is slightly more whimsical, though still very dark; and Blackberry Wine is more quirky than dark. ( )

Another interesting book from Joanne Harris. This one returns to the same village as Chocolat - but a few years later and with a different central character. Jay is the author of one successful novel but in the succeeding years he has drifted into writing articles and teaching others how to write. On impulse he buys a French farmhouse and hopes to be able to change his life. Interspersed within this story are recollections of Jay's childhood, summers spent at his grandparents house in the North of England and his relationship with ex-miner and vegetable grower Joe.

There is a delightfully quirky narrator and the story has slightly magical touches which add to the atmosphere. In some ways, even though Jay is an adult, this is a coming of age story. By reconnecting to his past Jay is able to move forward with his life. As always Harris's prose is wonderfully descriptive but, for me, Jay as a central character isn't as strong as some in her other books. Maybe this is because he seems to be the perpetual outsider, not really belonging in either place, so that the other characters don't seem be as connected. Not as good as some of her other work but I still enjoyed this novel. ( )