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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Summary: The Widow Patience Portefeaux is a middle aged French woman plodding along on the treadmill of life. She works as a poorly paid Arabic translator — first for the courts and then for the police. She struggles to pay for her mother’s Alzheimer care facility while keeping a shabby roof over her own head. Having grown up in a dysfunctional family on the fringes of society, Patience has great survival and coping skills, but much needed cash is in short supply.
Patience spends her days listening to, and then translating, transcripts of conversations between drug dealers, most of whom are complete idiots. They rant, rave and threaten each other, more interested in machismo than intelligent planning. When a more level-headed and business-minded family group of drug dealers crosses Patience’s desk, she starts to pay closer attention.
She discovers that she has an unexpected personal connection to one member of the family. This sets off ideas in her head that lead to her solving her cash-flow problem by becoming the Godmother of the local drug crime district.
Comments: This tightly written, darkly humorous and very clever novel crossed my path because it is this month’s book club selection for a discussion group I am joining. My description doesn’t begin to do justice to the wry observations and wit sprinkled throughout The Godmother. Stephanie Smee obviously did a fantastic job of translating from the original French.
Very highly recommended for readers of Literary Fiction.
My Rating: 5 STARS
Patience spends her days listening to, and then translating, transcripts of conversations between drug dealers, most of whom are complete idiots. They rant, rave and threaten each other, more interested in machismo than intelligent planning. When a more level-headed and business-minded family group of drug dealers crosses Patience’s desk, she starts to pay closer attention.
She discovers that she has an unexpected personal connection to one member of the family. This sets off ideas in her head that lead to her solving her cash-flow problem by becoming the Godmother of the local drug crime district.
Comments: This tightly written, darkly humorous and very clever novel crossed my path because it is this month’s book club selection for a discussion group I am joining. My description doesn’t begin to do justice to the wry observations and wit sprinkled throughout The Godmother. Stephanie Smee obviously did a fantastic job of translating from the original French.
Very highly recommended for readers of Literary Fiction.
My Rating: 5 STARS
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Not sure how to review this book…it’s the best type of slow burn where things tick along but at a pace that keeps the pages turning quicker then you would expect.
As it is often with translated works, there were some part that as a reader I couldn’t fully appreciate due to it getting lost in translation. And I can’t remember the last time I had to look up so many things! Words, places, artworks - the lot! (Not a negative though!)
As it is often with translated works, there were some part that as a reader I couldn’t fully appreciate due to it getting lost in translation. And I can’t remember the last time I had to look up so many things! Words, places, artworks - the lot! (Not a negative though!)
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The Godmother came to my attention thanks to A Good Read on Radio 4, I could listen to Harriet Gilbert all day, but that is not why we are here. I can’t remember who picked this as their good read, but I do remember listening to the conversation and thinking, this sounds quite good.
And it is. I’m not not normally a crime fiction kind of guy but the story is well crafted and told with humour and feeling and in such a way that it’s almost impossible not to be rooting for this unexpected short reigning drug lord of Paris.
Patience Portefeux recollects her childhood, with a family that had strayed slightly outside the law and saved their ostentation for when they were away on holiday, where young Patience tells Audrey Hepburn that she wanted to travel the world collecting fireworks, by watching displays everywhere, a simple yet quite beautiful idea. Later though her father ends his life on his own terms and Patience ends up with her broke mother living in a care home that she is paying for. In her mid fifties she is fast approaching retirement, but working as a translator for the police and being paid off the books, she has no pension to look forward to, which means nothing for her two daughters or herself, let alone keeping her mum in the home.
While working on a case about Moroccans smuggling drugs into Paris via Spain, Patience deliberately steps in to protect them, when she discovers that the nurse assigned to her mother is one of the smugglers mothers. In the end, the only person that knows where the huge quantity of Grade A hashish has been hidden is Patience, and so an extraordinary new life blossoms for the middle aged translator, which she has to hide from her police detective boyfriend.
As she recollects, the tale swings from humour of what she thinks of her employers, and of the drug dealers she has to deal with, even of the unexpected bond between here and the Chinese matriach in her building, to the complicated relationship with her mother, who she still can’t bear to see being wasted away by age and an uncaring system. It was funny in a way that her translation work gave her an intricate knowledge of the drug business tha enabled her to deal with the dealers as equals. It was less funny that despite just how crucial the translation work is to the police, the people that do it are treated with, at best, indifference.
I really enjoyed it, and would say that it’s probably a good beach read, and I say this in the middle of the Corona virus lockdown, wondering just when we’ll be able to see a beach again. Everything is tied up neatly at the end and yet somehow it feels that Patience is in the right, and the law, and everything else is in the wrong.
(blog review here)
And it is. I’m not not normally a crime fiction kind of guy but the story is well crafted and told with humour and feeling and in such a way that it’s almost impossible not to be rooting for this unexpected short reigning drug lord of Paris.
Patience Portefeux recollects her childhood, with a family that had strayed slightly outside the law and saved their ostentation for when they were away on holiday, where young Patience tells Audrey Hepburn that she wanted to travel the world collecting fireworks, by watching displays everywhere, a simple yet quite beautiful idea. Later though her father ends his life on his own terms and Patience ends up with her broke mother living in a care home that she is paying for. In her mid fifties she is fast approaching retirement, but working as a translator for the police and being paid off the books, she has no pension to look forward to, which means nothing for her two daughters or herself, let alone keeping her mum in the home.
While working on a case about Moroccans smuggling drugs into Paris via Spain, Patience deliberately steps in to protect them, when she discovers that the nurse assigned to her mother is one of the smugglers mothers. In the end, the only person that knows where the huge quantity of Grade A hashish has been hidden is Patience, and so an extraordinary new life blossoms for the middle aged translator, which she has to hide from her police detective boyfriend.
As she recollects, the tale swings from humour of what she thinks of her employers, and of the drug dealers she has to deal with, even of the unexpected bond between here and the Chinese matriach in her building, to the complicated relationship with her mother, who she still can’t bear to see being wasted away by age and an uncaring system. It was funny in a way that her translation work gave her an intricate knowledge of the drug business tha enabled her to deal with the dealers as equals. It was less funny that despite just how crucial the translation work is to the police, the people that do it are treated with, at best, indifference.
I really enjoyed it, and would say that it’s probably a good beach read, and I say this in the middle of the Corona virus lockdown, wondering just when we’ll be able to see a beach again. Everything is tied up neatly at the end and yet somehow it feels that Patience is in the right, and the law, and everything else is in the wrong.
(blog review here)
A breathless, enjoyable romp. The Godmother is engaging, often amusing company. There is little real depth to the characterisation and the fast pace precludes any real reader engagement. Reads more like a screenplay/ movie treatment and I suspect will make a more satisfying film.
A delightfully written novel about one woman's journey through life, written with a sly dark humour that will catch you unexpectedly. I really enjoyed this, Patience was a great character and I loved reading about her exploits. This is going to be made into a film and I can't wait to see it.