Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Why?

It is written by Joanne Harris.  I didn't need any other reason.  It is a very long time since I read Chocolat and so I needed to try more.

What?

Otherwise known as amazon spiel:

Beyond the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire, smooth and brown as a sunning snake - but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow, plies her culinary trade at the crêperie - and lets her memory play strange games.

As her nephew attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes Framboise has inherited from her mother, a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers, memories of a disturbed childhood during the German Occupation flood back, and expose a past full of betrayal, blackmail and lies.

Amazon Five Quarters of the Orange

Rusty words  ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕

"Oh, she understood wine, my mother. She understood the sweetening process, the fermentation, the seething and mellowing of life in the bottle, the darkening, the slow transformations, the birth of a new vintage in a bouquet of aromas like a magician’s bunch of paper flowers. If only she had had time and patience enough for us. A child is not a fruit tree. She understood that too late. There is no recipe to take a child into sweet, safe adulthood. She should have known that."

This is a beautiful book that articulates pain and joy with poignancy and ease.  It flows like the recipes that mystify and define the character of Framboise's mother.  You absorb every ingredient and truly experience the taste and touch and feel of the character's lives.  Their confusion and ambitions and ability to live through a time that although is dark and frightening, is filled with the vibrancy and hope of the character's youth.  

I loved this book and its exploration of a mother's love, the child's perception and mischievous ability to manipulate her.  The power struggle between the siblings is as riveting as that of the adult characters impacted by the occupation.

The only thing I am unsettled by is its genre - where would you assign it?  I should say historical fiction but the story does not feel defined by the events around it.  Please let me know your thoughts.  What actually is historical fiction?  Is it anything that is not based in today or tomorrow?  Help?