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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. . . .… (more)
Fabulous. Similar themes of family (especially mother-daughter relationships) revenge, forgiveness, love, food, like her Chocolat and The Strawberry Thief. Otherwise a very different, realistic story of 3 kids surviving in an occupied French village in WW2. The youngest returns to the village, hiding what she knows of the truth, only to be forced to reveal her version of the story which she discovers is not quite complete… ( )
I wish they had half star ratings here. I would give it a 3.5 almost a four. It was a good book and Id recommened it to anyone. I loved the relationship with food and smells as memories. The mother daughter relationships was one I wish had been explored more. ( )
A look back at an anything but innocent childhood along the Loire in WWII. Framboise is the youngest of three children of a war widow and is involved with her older siblings in interactions with a young German soldier who charms and manipulates everyone securing information used not for the military but for personal gain. Combined with their unstable mother ruthlessly manipulated by Framboise the situation becomes entirely unstable. In the retrospective it is her nephew's journalist wife who wants to write a book about what happened whereas Framboise wants to maintain the secrets she has kept for over half a century. I felt the ending was the weakest part of story and didn't do it any favors. ( )
When my mother died, she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar to my sister, Reine-Claude, and to me the youngest, her album, and a two-liter jar containing a single black Perigord truffle, large as a tennis ball, suspended in sunflower oil, that, when uncorked, still releases the rich dank perfume of the forest floor.
Quotations
Last words
We toasted our homecomings with sweet black coffee and croissants and green-tomato jame made to my mother's recipe.
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. . . .
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It has taken me fifty-five years to begin...The war is vividly remembered in Les Laveuses. There are people here who still don't speak to each other. My mother is an evil legend here. There are so many thing for you to understand. Why my mother did what she did. Why we hid the truth for so long. ANd why I'm telling my story now... In this haunted novel, Harris weaves a powerful tale of tragedy, secrets, and the relationship between a daughter and her mother. As a child, Framboise Dartigen and her family were driven from their small Loire village because of a tragedy that took place during the German occupation-an event that still haunts the town. Now the adult Framboise will find the terrible truth of that long-ago time hidden among the newspaper clipping, herbal cures, and cherished recipes that fill the pages of the scrapbook her mother has bequeathed to her. (from back of book)
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Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
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