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Bitter Orange Claire Fuller 9781947793156 Books

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Bitter Orange Claire Fuller 9781947793156 Books

Claire Fuller's moody and arresting novel, "Bitter Orange", beautifully reveals and ultimately resolves, the story told by Frances Jellico as she lies dying. Frances, through Fuller's luscious prose, narrates what happened to her during a few weeks in the summer of 1969, just after her mother, an invalid, dies; Frances having nursed her for ten years. With her sudden freedom, 39 year old and socially inexperienced, Frances, take a job evaluating and reporting on the gardens of an English manor house called Lyntons. Frances meets, and is immediately beguiled by, Peter and Cara, who have come to evaluate the contents of Lyntons for its American buyer. Frances also meets the local vicar, named Victor, who is facing a crisis of faith. These are the first friends Frances has ever had.

There are only 5 characters in "Bitter Orange" and one of them is Lyntons itself; a crumbling decaying ruin of a rambling atmospheric mansion. Although there are whiffs of Shirley Jackson, Daphne Du Maurier, and Charlotte Bronte, here...Fuller is to take full credit for the measured suspense, the disquiet, the perfect pacing of the story. We know that we aren't getting the "full picture" from either Frances or Cara, but expect twists! Inconsistencies will be resolve, and juicy mysteries will be revealed; I couldn't put "Bitter Orange" down until the shocking end.

If you'll indulge me on a mini-review of the cover art: while the vivid oranges and greens of the cover painting are gorgeous (oranges are indeed a recurring metaphor throughout the novel), if I were choosing the cover I would have selected a moody and darkish watercolor or blurry photo of an old Palladian bridge through the trees - more gothic than garish.


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Bitter Orange Claire Fuller 9781947793156 Books Reviews

"From the author of Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming Lessons, Bitter Orange is a seductive psychological portrait, a keyhole into the dangers of longing and how far a woman might go to escape her past.

From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first dark and beautiful, then Peter striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she's distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors’ private lives. "

The book was very slow starting at first but once I began seeing more into Frances' life before moving to the country, I began understanding why she acted as eccentrically as she did.

The end totally blew me away - I did not see it coming. I would have liked to have more story with Cara -not from just her point of view but...all in all....great read.
This was a richly atmospheric and unsettling novel. I found it to be incredibly depressing and heart wrenching. Claire Fuller has a wonderful writing style and it felt like I was reading an old classic, not contemporary fiction.

Frances Jellico goes to live in the attic of Lyntons, a rundown mansion in the English countryside, to work and document her findings. She quickly becomes fascinated with the couple living in the rooms below her. She realizes that she has a peephole in her bathroom, and can watch their lives unfold. As the summer continues, Frances befriends Cara and Peter, and quickly learns that all is not right in their complicated relationship.

Peter and Cara are the first friends Frances has ever had in her 39 years, making her an extremely vulnerable and heartbreaking character. I felt so much unease as I read the book, and I was not prepared for the devastating ending. I love Claire Fuller's beautiful writing, and I will read whatever she publishes.
The central motif of BITTER ORANGE popped out through its pungent prose, represented by a crumbling old manor on the English countryside. In 1969, an American businessman, Mr. Lieberman, bought the 1806 manse, Lyntons, (wrapped around the original 1754 brick one) and hired Londoner Frances Jellico to assess the the garden architecture, and another English expert, Peter, to report on the condition of the house and its fittings. It is evident that Lyntons was once grand and impressive. But things aren’t always what they seem. “…beautiful on the surface, but look a little closer and everything is decaying, rotting, falling apart.”

As the novel opens in 1989, Frances is ill, bedridden, and talking about death and funeral plans with a visiting vicar. Frances has lost some of her short-term memory, but does recall that special summer in 1969, when she lived in the attic of Lyntons while appraising the gardens. Down one floor are Peter and Cara, the beautiful and enigmatic couple that entice Frances out of her grief from her mother's recent death and her social anxiety. Frances had been lonely and isolated, tending to her sick mother for a decade, with no real excitement in her life.

That’s all about to change when Cara lures Frances with her gourmet cooking and beguiling banter, filling her up with stories of her and Peter’s travel and romance. The three of them drink through the hazy days of summer, courtesy of the well-stocked wine cellar. Frances, overweight and plain, routinely wears her dead mother’s girdle and bra to painfully rein in her loose flesh. But her attentive and flattering new friends galvanize Frances to feel confident and deserving, removing obstacles in her path, to joy and self-esteem.

Eventually, the triad explores the minutiae of the property and discovers every nook and cranny of Lyntons. Fuller’s descriptions are as intricate and serpentine as the estate and the trio alliance. Frances is swathed in the illusive—she has discovered a hidden telescope embedded in her bathroom floor that peers into Cara and Peter’s bathroom. The lens, however, provides a distorted view.

The reader is enveloped in an unreliable narrator, and as the story advances, the plot turns incrementally more disturbing. My only complaint, if it is one, is that I figured out most of the secrets before the end of the first chapter. But most of my friends, close readers all of them, didn’t see it coming (which means I’m a genius! Haha)—so apparently it isn’t as obvious as I thought. It diluted the suspense, but not my engagement. Fuller’s extended metaphors that fold into her themes, as well as her succulent prose and fully dimensional characters, kept me fastened until the BITTER ORANGE end.
4.5 rounded up
Claire Fuller's moody and arresting novel, "Bitter Orange", beautifully reveals and ultimately resolves, the story told by Frances Jellico as she lies dying. Frances, through Fuller's luscious prose, narrates what happened to her during a few weeks in the summer of 1969, just after her mother, an invalid, dies; Frances having nursed her for ten years. With her sudden freedom, 39 year old and socially inexperienced, Frances, take a job evaluating and reporting on the gardens of an English manor house called Lyntons. Frances meets, and is immediately beguiled by, Peter and Cara, who have come to evaluate the contents of Lyntons for its American buyer. Frances also meets the local vicar, named Victor, who is facing a crisis of faith. These are the first friends Frances has ever had.

There are only 5 characters in "Bitter Orange" and one of them is Lyntons itself; a crumbling decaying ruin of a rambling atmospheric mansion. Although there are whiffs of Shirley Jackson, Daphne Du Maurier, and Charlotte Bronte, here...Fuller is to take full credit for the measured suspense, the disquiet, the perfect pacing of the story. We know that we aren't getting the "full picture" from either Frances or Cara, but expect twists! Inconsistencies will be resolve, and juicy mysteries will be revealed; I couldn't put "Bitter Orange" down until the shocking end.

If you'll indulge me on a mini-review of the cover art while the vivid oranges and greens of the cover painting are gorgeous (oranges are indeed a recurring metaphor throughout the novel), if I were choosing the cover I would have selected a moody and darkish watercolor or blurry photo of an old Palladian bridge through the trees - more gothic than garish.