Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Peeling Away Past Memories

I get my love of reading from my mother.  For as long as I can remember, she always had a book in her hand.  My father read, too, but he mainly stuck to magazines, and while my mother read both, it's the books she got lost in.  She found herself immersed in other lives, different countries, and time periods, outrageous dilemmas, discoveries, mysteries, adventures, great loves, and tragic losses.  To me, she was like the Pied Piper of reading.  I wanted to follow her into the world of books, to see what she saw. Like her, I wanted to become a voyeur and peek into other people's desires, to read their minds, and follow their paths. She gave me the joy of reading, an unbelievable gift that just keeps giving.

As my mother continues to whip through books, she keeps me informed as to the ones that really strike a chord with her, books she recommends.  Five Quarters of the Orange is one of them.  She thought I might like it, and she was right.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris is a book that hooked me from the beginning.  The story has a nice cadence to it, a pace that moves it along.  The narrator is an older woman looking back on her life with her cold, harsh mother, her brother, and sister.  Framboise, now in her sixties, lured me along with the setting of a small French town during the German occupation of WWII.  She teased me with the mystery that surrounded her mother. What happened to make her mother so hated in the village that Framboise is afraid to reveal who she really is after so many decades away?  Who was Tomas Leibnitz, and what role did he play in the horrors of the past? And what’s an orange got to do with all this?  Those questions kept me turning page after page, to hear Framboise slowly reveal the tragic events of the past and how they intertwine with the conflicts she faces in her later years.  Good book.

Don't miss other "Mother" selections featured later this week!

Happy reading,

Annette