Daughters of the House

An exquisite short novel set in Normandy in France. Therese lives with her mother and father in a Normandy manor house. Leonie and her mother, Therese's aunt visit from England every summer for a long holiday. Michele Roberts captures brilliantly how the two girls played and squabbled and explored and sniped at each other and invented stories around family secrets. The chapters are short and each one inspired by a household object, the doorbell, the recipe book, the biscuit tin etc. The scents and light and shadow of the rooms of the house are described and the large garden with its orchard and vegetable garden. There is lots of gathering and cooking. In a nearby wood there used to be a shrine to Mary, Jesus' mother and village secrets show more surround this clearing. Michele Roberts weaves a story around this family and Catholicism, visions, priests and wartime secrets. Illness and loss are additional themes. All this is told simply but with attention to detail that conjures up the house and its contents. Leonie is in the toilet, 'She sat there, her feet on tiptoe, just reaching the black and white floor, and gazed at the glazed bumps of the linen towel hanging from a hook on the back of the door, the little wash-basin shaped like a scallop shell, the black and white edging of the tiles above. The cake of violet soap in its tin dish.' The novel begins when Leonie and Therese meet again when Therese comes to the house which Leonie now owns and lives in. They haven't seen each other for 20 years and it is awkward. To calm herself to sleep Leonie lists the contents of the house, where Therese was born. show less

I'll be the lion, Léonie said; bags I the lion.
First she posed as a Roman centurion and did a bit of torture. It was a way of working herself up to full ferocity. She stretched Thérèse on the rack until her bones cracked, tore off her breasts with red-hot pincers, then flogged her with twigs and broke her on the wheel. Thérèse refused to stop being a Christian. Her punishment for this was to be thrown into the arena. To be torn apart by wild animals.
The first time they tried out death in the arena the Christian got infected by the general blood lust and bit the lion. Léonie rubbed her arm, very cross.
You've got to die without making any fuss. That's the whole point.

During the 1950s, half-English Léonie and her French mother show more Madeleine, come to France to stay for the school holidays to stay on the farm that is jointly owned by Madeleine and her sister Antoinette. Léonie and her cousin Thérèse were born just a week apart and are very close. They are best friends, rivals and sometime enemies whose games are haunted by religion, family illness and secrets dating back to the war.

After twenty years as a contemplative nun, Thérèse returns to the farm, now occupied by Léonie and her family. The women are wary of each other, remembering lies told in the past and concerned about whose version of their shared history will be believed. show less

Anglo-French writer Michèle Roberts writes the story of cousins, one English, one French. Every short chapter is triggered by some household object in the house where Thérèse and Léonie both live in their teenage years. The book paints a vivid picture of French country-house life in the post-war years, and was a device I enjoyed, just as I enjoyed observing the girls' somewhat love-hate relationship develop, despite their closeness. But I was uninvolved in the plot itself, which I found rather slight. For me, this book was very much a case of style over substance.

Two adolescent cousins are growing up together in a family home in 1960s Normandy. It was quite beguilingly written, but the short, choppy chapters, bringing in hints of stories, left me kind of bemused. There's a heady mix of teenage hormones, a war time atrocity, a family secret and a mysterious old shrine in the woods...Didnt quite engage me.

(8.5) This was just the story I needed to draw me back into reading after a very busy family time. At only 172 pages , it was a quick and very satisfying read about life in a village in France, post the Second World War. I was soon intrigued by where this book was taking the reader. This is the first book I have read by this author and it won't be long before I pick up another I have on my shelves.

Léonie and Thérèse haven't seen each other in years but when Thérèse comes for a visit the various objects in her house evoke memories in Léonie about their childhood holidays that she spent in the house, of her aunt Antoinette's illness and the secrets the adults seemed to be keeping from the two girls. I expected to find this book slow going but I was easily engrossed and did enjoy it.

Good book! This is a book about two girl cousins who grew up together in Normandy France, went separate ways and then reunite after 20 years. The chapters are each about an object in their childhood house and usually very short. This style of writing made it very quick to read but made the narrative a little jumpy for me. I liked the detailed descriptions, getting a glimpse of country life in France after World War II, and how we really get to know the relationship between the cousins. I thought I would enjoy this book more but I still thought it was a good read.