Les Rochefort

by Christian Laborie

Première moitié du XXe siècle, le roman de deux familles que tout sépare mais qu'un secret va lier à jamais : les Rochefort, fabricants de la toile " de Nîmes ", et les Rouvière, exploitants de terres cévenoles.

Les uns croyaient à la terre, les autres au textile.

Les uns entrent avec lenteur dans la modernité, attachés à transmettre ce qui leur vient du passé, pendant que les autres n'ont d'yeux que pour le profit, prêts à sacrifier l'un de leurs enfants quand ils l'estiment nécessaire.

Les Rouvière cultivent la vigne, un peu de blé et, bien sûr, mûriers et oliviers sur les pentes des Cévennes tandis que les Rochefort font prospérer leur filature, exploitant la " toile de Nîmes " jusqu'aux Etats-Unis, où leur meilleur client se nomme Levi Strauss.

Les Rouvière et les Rochefort n'en finiront pas moins par s'unir pour le meilleur et pour le pire grâce à la révélation d'un secret qui bouleverse la vie de chacun...

Genres: Historical Fiction, France, Fiction

672 pages, Pocket Book

First published May 5, 2015

Reviews

[Magdalena aka A Bookaholic Swede · Rating 4 out of 5]

It all started with a lie and a lie that decades later almost ruined two people's lives.

This is grand family saga concerning two families, the Rochefort, owner of Rochefort Industries manufacturers of denim and the Rouvière, owner of a prosperous farm.

Anselme Rochefort proposes to Donatien Rouvière that their families should unite. His son should marry Rouvière daughter. At first, this seems like a marvelous idea, but as the years go and the two families lives get more and more get intertwined, despite that Anselme tries to stop it. He married off his son for a piece of land, but he doesn't want more of his children falling in love with any of the Rouvières. His greed could be the ruin of his family and a deep dark secret concerning his older's daughter's death could destroy the love of two young people.

When it comes to books that are almost 500 pages long you really need a story, a well-written story that can keep the reader's interest up. Christian Laborie has really managed that. Even though the story of the two families' takes up decades as the children of Rochefort and Rouvière grow ups and new children were born it never really gets boring. I think one thing that makes everything work besides the good writing is that Laborie includes real-life events like WW1. Reading a family set in a historical setting needs to in a good way incorporate everything that was happening around the time frame.

The big secret wasn't that secret in my opinion, I just kept waiting for it to be reviled. But the ramification of it made the last part of the books really intense to read. I needed the truth to come out, it couldn't end so badly. This is actually a book that I really needed a Happy Ever After ending or else it would destroy me. I'm not a big fan of instalove, but damn it, some people just are meant to be!

I enjoyed reading this book very much and I'm looking forward to reading more books by Laborie in the future.

I received a copy from the publisher and france book tours in return for an honest review!

[Melinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A juicy entertaining family saga spanning from the late 1800’s to 1930’s set in France focusing on two families the Rocheforts and the Rouvières. The former a family of wealth and station, prosperous in the textile industry, the later an able, sufficient, simplistic farming family.

The two families are joined by marriage as well business purposes. Various dramas play out as a level of mystery ignites the reading adventure, revealing itself towards the end of the saga.

Pre WWI, Russian Revolution, post WWI and the market crash serve as historical references demonstrating their toll on the two families. As trials continue to test the family members their true characters emerge. A family divided, another united as choices and actions unfold. An education on denim plays heavily in the narrative satisfying a point of interest.

Plenty of drama, debauchery and strong characters, dark secrets, betrayal. Heavy on theatrics keeping your focus as both families, each dealing with their share of dysfunctionality singularly and plurally. A hardcore earlier version of Dynasty and Dallas. Both J.R. Ewing and Anselme Rochefort equally shrewd and self-serving, thirsting for power yet never satiated.

Enjoyable read allowing the peruser to escape reality, your own personal problems pale in comparison to the plethora of predicaments with the varying degrees of colorful personalities as these two clans face and create their present state while contemplating their futures.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remember the "family saga"? Those long, involved novels which follow a family from generation to generation? The ones where the sins of the father were visited on the sons, and their sons, etc? The late author Taylor Caldwell used to churn them out and all were entertaining in their overwrought way. (Side bar: I wish Caldwell's publishers would publish her "Dynasty of Death" trilogy in ebook...).

Anyway, French author Christian Laborie's novel, "The Rocheforts", is being published in English. It was a best-seller in France in 2010. The book, a longish saga of the Rochefort family of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France, begins when a man is spotted entering a darkened house in 1898 and seen leaving with a bundle of...something. The reader doesn't know what the bundle is but the author gives clues. And we do find out later on. The story then moves on in time to the merging of two family fortunes - fortunes of unequal size, however - with the marriage of Louise Rouviere and Jean-Christophe Rochefort. Louise is from a prosperous farm family, which, unfortunately for the father, Donatien, consists only of daughters. He and his wife decide to adopt a child from an orphanage in Nimes and groom him to take over the family farm. The rest of the book is the story of the Rochefort and the Rouviere families and how the two interact, interlove, and intermarry. The villain of the book - and there really only is one - is the patriarch of the Rocheforts, Anselme, who time and time again manages to alienate everyone around him. (I say only one, though there's another bad guy, but he's sort of an "Anseleme mini-me") From Anselme the lies and coverups do go generation to generation...

The attentive reader of fiction almost always learns something from the pages of a well-written novel. In "The Rocheforts", we learn about denim. The material, denim. The name "denim" was taken from the area in France in which it was developed, "Nimes". ("de Nimes" or "denim"). The Rochefort money has come from both dowries and the production of fabric.

Christian Laborie also does an excellent job at writing about France in the pre-WW1 years til the 1930's in his family saga. This is one of the first novels I've read that covers those years, in political, economic, and societal terms.

The only problem with the book that some readers may find is the somewhat flatness of the writing. I'm trying to figure out if its because of the translation from French to English. I don't know who did the translation; no name is given. It could be that Christian Laborie did his own translation. Now, I liked it because I don't like florid writing. But others may not be able to get "involved" with the family. This is one of those book I can heartily recommend to readers looking for a robust family saga. But do read all the reviews that will be written about this book - I think mine is the first but many others will follow - and see if any mention the writing style.

[A. L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would not be for everyone. There isn’t really much action or suspense. It is a Bildungsroman of an entire family. Two families, really. The parts that ought to have the most action (like WWI and dealings with gangsters) merit very little space. This story is focused on the family of Rocheforts. And by that, I literally mean ‘on the family’. With only a few exceptions, if a character’s development or action takes place away from the main body of the Rochefort family, it garners only a comparative few pages.

However, I still enjoyed it. I like reading novels of regular people and their regular lives, people that could be your neighbors and the rich, private lives they hide behind walls. Every family is different, my apologies to Mr. Tolstoy, because every family has some sadness, some sorrow. I like to read about other people deal with their hidden sorrows. While the Rocheforts, and the Rouvières are fictional, they are also very real. They could easily be your neighbor...if you were living in turn of the century Nîmes, France.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.

Something in us loves the big family sagas. They capture the imagination and whet a reader’s (or a viewer’s) appetite. Perhaps because of the juiciness of soap opera but with a layer of class that we can disguise the real reason by the veneer of “art appreciation”. No, no, I’m not watching soap; I’m watching Dame Maggie Smith. It’s culture. It’s on PBS. They have accents. No, no, this is not a romance book. Do you see one of those semi naked couples standing in the wind on the cover? It’s literature.

It helps, and usually it’s a given, that the family in question is rich or becomes rich (or battles to stay rich) over the course of the story. There can be another family in opposition or alongside the center family, but money matters. Who wants to read about three generations of outhouse makers?

The title family of this book, the Rocheforts are not cheese makers. They are capitalists, except when they’re not. The family starts by producing demine and like all families in these types of stories there is a deep, dark secret that involves illicit going ons. Of course, there is a mirror family, who has less money but more character (and quite frankly, is more interesting because the girls in that family actually do something besides look pretty). The novel chronicles how the families become connected, disconnected, and interact.

It isn’t the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s.

It’s a strange book because it is largely telling and not showing; additionally, any reader who pays attention knows the deep dark secret before the action gets going and keeps waiting for the knuckleheads in the book to figure it out (because honestly, it feels like it is surrounded by neon lights so why can’t the characters see it). Yet, for all that, there is something compelling about the book. Perhaps it is seeing how the lives of the minor characters, such as Louise who eventually becomes more than the sinned against wife, end up. Perhaps it is because of the emphasis on history, which at times comes across far livelier than the family. Whatever it is, this unknown factor keeps the reader going to the end, past a ten year old who doesn’t act like a ten year old and two brothers are closer in cruelty than they think, or even some words and phrases that seem out place for the time period (this could be a translation issue). In many ways, it seems like the book is trying to be a French or Industrial version of Downton Abbey; it would make a nice mini-series.

In short, while not the best family saga out there, it is a pleasant enough way to spend a few hours.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Rocheforts
By
Christian LaBorie



Key characters...and what is going down with them...

We have two major families in this novel...the Rochefort family and the Rouviere family. The Rochefort family is more elegant...more social...more apt to be dishonest and adulterous. They make silk. The Rouviere family...farmers, vintners...were much more honest and real. These families unite through marriage and make each other relatively miserable from that point on.

What I thought about this book...

This book was rather interesting for me. It was nicely written...the families and their children were fascinating in their dysfunction...even at the time of the "industrial" revolution and the early days of WWI...men behaved quite badly. I loved the beginning of the book...the shadowy character taking a bundle to the convent. I also loved finding out the mystery of the mysterious bundle at the end. The book actually begins with yet another mystery...Catherine...the eldest daughter of Anselme and his first wife...that is not solved until Anselme is on his death bed. Also...Levi Strauss and his denim jeans were a part of this book.

Why you might want to read it, too...

I found this to be interesting. Historical, spicy and filled with anguish...I enjoy this kind of book every once in a while!

[Lucy Pollard-Gott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found The Rocheforts to be an enthralling family saga, one which kept me intensely engaged from its dramatic Prologue, set in 1898, to its Epilogue, thirty-two years later. Although this is Christian Laborie's first novel to appear in English, I was not surprised to learn that he is an accomplished author of many other novels, a total of 16 books to date, two of which have won prizes for regional fiction related to the area he has made his home, the Cévennes, a mountainous region in the southeast corner of the Massif Central. It must have a special attraction for authors: Robert Louis Stevenson traveled there in 1878 and then published a famous memoir about his trip, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. Much of The Rocheforts takes place in Tornac (near Anduze, we are told) in the Gard department, within sight of the Cévennes mountains. This is the home of the Rouvières, a family of prosperous farmers who raise sheep and maintain vineyards on their fertile land holdings. The other main locus of the action is Nîmes, capital of Gard and a major city in the Languedoc-Rousillon region, noted for its Roman ruins and long history and, in this novel, for its wonderful sturdy cloth, the "serge de Nîmes" commonly called denim. Anselme Rochefort and his family has long maintained a thriving textile business in the region, first, in silk made from their own silkworms fed on mulberry trees they grew themselves, and then, thanks to the shrewd management of Anselme's father, who moved the factories to Nîmes, in denim which they sold to Levi Strauss in America. The Rocheforts live in the city but often spend time at their country home, Clos du Tournel, which made them neighbors of the Rouvières.

It soon becomes clear that this book is really the saga of two families, whose lives become so entangled that their histories cannot be told separately. However, I believe it would be most helpful to readers for me to introduce the members of each family, who are the chief characters of the novel. It is to Laborie's credit as a writer and an observer of people that he makes each family member distinctly memorable.

The Rocheforts:

Anselme--Shrewd and unswerving in his calculations, whether to advance his business interests or dominate his family, Anselme is a formidable patriarch. He inherits much wealth, adds to it by two advantageous marriages, and wishes to hold absolute sway over his children especially. Events flow from this determination of his to control, even when that control is thwarted--at great cost to those closest to him.
Eleanor--Anselme's first wife and mother of his eldest daughter, Catherine. Already suffering from depression when she wed, Eleanor's life proved to be as short as it was unhappy.
Elisabeth--Anselme's second wife, who raised Catherine as her own and had two more daughters and two sons with him. She showed herself a capable mother and loyal wife, despite Anselme's often cold and dismissive disposition; devoutly religious, she was sincerely involved in many charitable activities, befitting the role of a society wife. Aware of her high social station, she was slow to form close bonds with the Rouvières, but she was not as implacable as her husband, and grew to value and respect them.
Catherine--The Rocheforts' oldest daughter is the focus of family secrets. When we meet the family, they are already in mourning for her at her funeral.
Elodie--Being deeply attached to her older sister, Elodie suffers from persistent grief over Catherine's death and suspicion about its circumstances. Her health declines but readers should not count her out of the drama because of her frailty.
Jean-Christophe--The "good son" who apparently follows his father's wishes, Jean Christophe shares his father's harsh political views, and agrees to devote his life to the family business. Unfortunately, he has too little of his father's keen judgment and too much disregard for the consequences of his actions. The extent of his double-dealing and immorality will surprise even his father, and point the family toward disaster.
Sebastien--The rebellious son, Sebastien is the one who feels as though he landed in the wrong family. He has no taste for wealth or luxury, develops early concern for the plight of workers, and wishes for nothing but the independence to conduct his own life without interference from his father. His childhood and youth are a constant tug-of-war with Anselme. An idealist in many ways, he nevertheless manifests a thoughtless streak that ends up hurting others.
Faustine--The pampered youngest child, Faustine is perhaps the only Rochefort child who is warmly loved, and willingly indulged, by Anselme. She is beautiful, confident, intelligent, and the least troubled of her siblings. Yet this will not protect her from hurtling toward terrible heartache.


The Rouvières:

Donatien--The Rouvière patriarch is a loving family man, father of three daughters and one adopted son. He wisely manages and tirelessly works his extensive farms, called La Fenouillère, and his honest dealings have made him respected in the region. He is on good terms with his neighbors including the powerful Rocheforts, a position which allows him to incur privileges, such as summer pasturing of his sheep on Rochefort land in Lozère. In turn, he harvests the grapes from the Rochefort vineyards and is able to keep (and sell) half their yield. But despite his obvious success, social disparity is enough to put him at a disadvantage when Anselme Rochefort wishes to contract a marriage between his oldest son Jean-Christophe and Donatien's eldest daughter, Louise.
Constance--Donatien married for love, and his wife Constance is a partner in their family and even in some of the farm labor, such as the grape harvest, where the whole family must pitch in. She is warmly understanding and solicitous of her children, but finds herself somewhat intimidated at first by the closer connections established with the wealthier Rouvières.
Louise--The Rouvières' eldest daughter accepts an arranged marriage with Jean-Christophe Rochefort very early in the book. She brings to the marriage an impressive dowry, the groves of mulberry trees which Anselme covets to feed his silkworms. Louise and Jean-Christophe have a large family of their own, and she becomes an influential figure in the story for both her siblings and her in-laws.
Julie--The second Rouvière daughter has a bad case of middle-child syndrome, since she feels ignored and uncomfortable with the expectations placed on her. She will also become entangled with one of the Rochefort men.
Aline--Youngest daughter Aline is bright and wishes to be a teacher. Her ready admiration for her adopted brother Vincent becomes unrequited love as they grow older.
Vincent--Vincent Janvier spends his early childhood years at the Sisters of Charity orphanage in Nîmes, until he is adopted by Donatien and Constance Rouvière. He quickly loves all the duties of farm life and forms strong bonds with his new family. The Rocheforts are slower to acknowledge his status as Donatien's fully fledged son and sometimes fail to recognize his importance, with the significant exception of young Faustine. She and Vincent fall in love "at first sight" as children, and their forbidden romance is pivotal throughout the novel.

These families will experience the repercussions of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the post-war period up through the financial crash of 1929. We see the changing fortunes of the Rocheforts' textile company, the effects of shifting markets and supplier competition in the denim industry, and the crisis of an aging industrial magnate trying to pass on his business and ensure his family legacy. The threats of family disunity and financial disintegration are never far away, and in this respect, the novel belongs to a class of novels exemplified by Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks (1901), the story of a north German family's decline over four generations. Younger generations who succeed a great founder of a business empire tend to have different talents and different aspirations, and they are adversely affected morally by the very wealth their illustrious forebear has created for them. Critic Ian Sansom called this the "Buddenbrooks effect" in his last piece for The Guardian in 2011. It is equally the "Rochefort effect" in Christian Laborie's compelling portrait of two French families at the beginning of the twentieth century. See more about this book at The Fictional 100.

[Tammy O · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great story of two families, their lives and their relationships. I enjoyed the setting in France, along with details of the Rochefort business--manufacturing denim and silk. The end seemed rushed--I wish the events from the last few chapters had started to unfold earlier in the book--but still a good read.

Advanced eBook copy provided by Net Galley for review.

[Chrystal]

The Rocheforts family saga, as painted by author Christian Laborie is a sort of immigrant epic of achievement in 19th century France. The story views the Rochefort family from the inside.
Read complete review at TerrificReads.com

[nikkia neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

very cool histical fiction.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Fiction, Historical, Melodrama)

After visiting France in late 2014, I could not get enough of that country so I was happy to receive an ecopy of this book from NetGalley. I tried several times to ‘get into’ this, even skimming and re-entering, with no success.

Amazon calls this a “sweeping story of love, greed, and betrayal” but I found it trite, predictable, and overly-long.

2 stars

[Erin Al-Mehairi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love a good family saga, or this case, an epic saga at almost 500 pages. Don’t let the length deter you though, as you might not even feel like it’s such a length once you start flipping the screen pages. It’s a translated novel, from French to English, and the author’s first English novel. But he’s an author of many other novels in France. Possibly with a writing-style much like most foreign authors, in which they tend to tell their story and be less visual, or maybe due to it being translated, it could be a bit more stiff rather than showy; however, I feel that it still is very readable as the character drama propels the reader.

I used to love to watch the old family style sweeping historical mini-series showings on Masterpiece Theater, or other like channels, when I was a child. I still love them. But I do like books even better. Something about them really captivates me, as I enjoy reading of these rich and prosperous or such families in history. When I read the synopsis for this one, in which the family of Rocheforts, who live in de Nimes (and make denim, isn’t that cool where the word comes from?), and of the Rouvière,who are their farming neighbors, I was entranced already. I continued to be delighted upon reading. The novel takes us from 1898 and 30 years past, into the effects of World War I and the financial crash. We see the marriage of children in the family, adoptions, deaths, and the many facets of the political and social upheavals this time period brings.

It also has some suspense at the beginning, which created a few mysteries, but one that wasn’t too difficult to figure out or was the main basis of the book. It was character and drama driven with good research into the history of the time period. It told of romance, economic class struggles, family issues, murder and mystery, politics, and industry. I thought it was interesting how all five Rochefort children had such different personalities and were all well-developed–some liked, some not. The character of the Rochefort patriarch was strong, as he was owner of the legacy and fortune (passed to him from his father), and also with one of his sons to whom he passed down his cold demeanor, and we see his terrible personality unfold as he strives to put back together a family fortune and reputation he’s all but lost.

I did especially enjoy the sections on the textiles and denim, though, which was their business. The juxtaposition of the Rochefort’s industrial life was contrasted well against the life of the other family, who made their money off the land. We could easily see how personalities are made or changed with wealth sometimes and we see how intertwining such families really could cause future issues. Yet, we also see shining light of how it could work as well.

There truly was so much happening in this novel, with twists and turns in regard to family and life struggles, so that the book was easy to remain attached to and that helped propel me through the novel. I love reading family histories, especially during this time period of major industrial and financial change.

I’m not sure when this was originally published, but it reads like those wonderful family sagas from decades ago. I miss those, with the writing today that is so action focused. There is something to be said about this type of book. It had a vintage historical feel that I really liked and I enjoyed being able to slow down and read this book over time, without losing any momentum on it.

I would highly recommend this book if you like dramatic familial novels, showing decades of ancestors with all their secrets, lies, and anguish. Personally, I love books about turn-of-the-century industrialists and how they lived, so I really liked this one. I can fully see why this novel was a best-seller when it first published in France.

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intended as a sweeping saga of two families, one headed by a rich industrialist, the other by a farmer, this book reads like a bad Dickens novel, with every twist of fate the could be thrown in. It is set in the early 1900 in France. Each character of the book moves through a series of complicated plot twists, and by the end, a series of unbelievable conflicts are unbelievably resolved.

The patriarch of the Rocheforts, the rich family, is a cold and scheming business man. He marries his son the the eldest daughter of the farmer's family, in order to gain some of the farmer's land as a dowry. The son is a ruthless businessman like his father, and uses his free time to gamble and visit whore houses.

Each of the other three children of the Rocheforts have their own complex plots, which weave in and out with the lives of the farmer's children. We have illegitimate children, anorexia, World War I, orphans being adopted, workers rights, Vietnamese revolts, people going to help the Russian Revolution, and possibly incestuous love.

Beside being unbelievably plotted, the book suffers from abrupt transitions in plot, and bizarre foreshadowing.

Examples
Referring to two 10 year olds:
"When the flock arrived, and Fautine and Vincent's eyes met for the first time, they immediately understood they would share much more than this moment in their lives."

About a character who had been introduced only 2 paragraphs before:

"Despite her impassion beliefs [about a political stance|, Hoa Mi had gentle and quiet bearing. And Sebastien, who had always been inflamed by rhetoric, found himself seduced by a woman of few words. A single glance from this exotic beauty could convince him of anything and drag him into a whirlpool of sensual delights."

This book lurches through 25 years of history, but is thoroughly unbelievable.

[Jacqueline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a family drama set in the early 1900’s when the farming of silk worms in the mulberry trees of the Cévennes and the denim and silk mills in Nîmes were big businesses. We meet two families, the Rocheforts and Rouvières whose different backgrounds and lifestyles don’t stop them being bound together in drama and deceit. The Rochefort men were ambitious and proud (to the point of arrogance) which often led to heated disputes that threatened the family unit. The Rouvières were more down to earth and honest, but fate stepped in more than once to entwine their lives together. The characters were all very different and I enjoyed the way they developed throughout the novel, some were not to my liking at the beginning but I warmed to them in their latter years. The women were the ones who I felt demonstrated the strength and intelligence to hold their families together.

This isn’t a fast paced excitement filled read, but with an underlying current that I knew would come to a head at some point, there was plenty of interest to keep me page turning. I really enjoyed the historical backdrop of this novel, as I knew very little about the silk and denim production process. It was fascinating to follow the family dramas played out alongside the farming of the era and the more industrial life of fabric making at the mills. I love the Cévennes region in France and am looking forward to going back there soon and now a visit to Nîmes is on my agenda too.

I would love for there to be a follow up novel. This book saw them through the years from 1898 to 1929, but how will the Second World War affect the families?

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn’t a particularly bad book, but it was all very predictable and I soon lost interest. It’s an old-fashioned family multi-generational saga, set in France, telling of two families – the Rocheforts and the Rouvieres – from the 19th century into the 20th, with some nice historical detail, especially about making denim, but overall I found it all very dull. The characterisation is flat, everyone talks in clichés so the dialogue is unconvincing and the plot twists and turns are all so hackneyed. And then there’s the translation. Oh dear. I really don’t think a 19th century nun would have told one of her flock to “toughen up”. “You get my drift”. “You’re losing it”. So many anachronisms like these pepper the dialogue. And I’m quite sure wealthy French families didn’t refer to their servants as “the help”. Nor did they go to “correctional facilities”. And as for calling their parents “Mom and Dad” – oh là là! My irritation levels rose as I read and in the end I just gave up. I enjoy a good family saga, believe me, but this sadly just failed in so many ways.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't hate it. I didn't like it. In fact, I'm quite indifferent towards this book. I was really drawn towards the premise--I love a good historical fiction; however while this one started out interesting, it quickly fell off and became increasingly more boring the more I read.

As I understand it, the book has been translated from French. It is always hard for a translated book to feel fluid in any other language besides the one it was originally written in, and I feel like this is my source of unhappiness with this novel. At one point the translation used the phrase "hanky-panky" to describe sex. That phrase isn't used any more expect in instances were some comic relief is being added to a conversation to alleviate tension. The translation was using the phrase quite seriously. That's kind of where my enjoyment for the novel ended.

About half-way through I realized that reading the novel became more of a chore and less a source of pleasure.

[Caroline Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Rocheforts is a sprawling family saga that take a hard look at two families in late 19th century France. It's a great departure from the usual Parisian set novel featuring royalty or aristocracy, instead choosing to focus on the hardworking landed gentry and a family with wealth from industrialization. Anselme Rochefort is deliciously bad and stops at nothing to get his way, even if it means destroying those close to him. Conversely Donatien Rouvière is a family man more concerned with his lasting legacy than crushing those who stand in his way. Christian Laborie is a gifted writer who has an excellent grasp of setting the scene and creating effective characterizations. Lovers of family sagas and France will find much to enjoy in The Rocheforts.

[Kell Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspective on the conflict between traditional and industrial ways of life at the turn of the 19th century and into World War 1. I've read a number of English books on this time period, but this book offers a French view. It's a sweeping family epic, but unfortunately I did not feel connected to the characters.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️Nothing new here. I finished the book just to see what happened to the family, although the end was predictable.
Would have liked a lot more history, and a lot less drama of a disfunctional family.

[Tina Price · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is fine, quite interesting, but the writing is sloppy. It's quite American in the initial section, which is set in France. Can't see a French nun telling anyone to "Go see" about anything! Drove me mad.