Fatima's Good Fortune

This is an entertaining book, but the authors missed the opportunity to make the characters more complex and more interesting. What are the Countess's politics? How does Fatima feel about the pampered dog? Does the well-born Hippolyte have any qualms about his new love, who is a maid? There are interesting cultural and class issues that could have added richness to the story. In addition, the writing is uneven. Despite these weaknesses, I happily read to the end. This book would be good travel reading.

Fatima is born and raised on a tiny island off the coast of Tunisia. Her husband some years ago fled, divorced her, and is now living in Sheboygan Wisconsin with a young American woman. Her only marketable skill is that she can clean hotels and houses. She cannot even read or write. But she has a profound hidden talent for penetrating the shells people erect to shield themselves from damage inflicted by the ill-intentioned. When her sister is killed in a bizarre accident, her sister's employer - an aging Parisian countess - summons her to take up where her sister left off. The initial days are inauspicious. Fatima struggles and nearly loses what very little she has. But her talent for making loyal friends serves her well. She carves out a fragile existence, slowly earning the Countess' approval and eventually her admiration. This is a beautiful and touching book. Fatima, though she has no marketable skills, manages to touch our hearts with her gentleness, kindness, and innate wisdom. The people she associates with are beautifully rendered, warts and all. Its narrative thread is fairly strong, but it would be a mistake to read this book because of its action or its story line. Instead, one would read this book to spend some time with characters who are lovingly drawn - ones with whom we might be quite happy to share some company. Finishing the book and putting it down is filled with much the same pathos as saying 'au revoir' to a dear friend.

Five stars, including (!) the 'calibre of writing'. As a writer myself, I stand in awe of some of the beautiful writing. But above all it is the insights that transported me with sheer admiration. The meaning of real love, humanity, honour, selflessness...Our times have seemingly validated much that is worthless, vulgar, at best mediocre. But do not despair, feeling and thinking people! This book will clarify things. Magic!

This is a highly enjoyable book, which provokes romantic memories of "la belle Paris"; its richly colourful characters, be they Parisian, provincials or exotic foreigners, are each unique; and it is replete with mouth-watering descriptions of North African cuisine, such as Fatima's buttery, melt-in-the-mouth couscous and rosewater-scented loukoum {Turkish delight). "Fatima's Good Fortune" tells a heart-warming tale of how Fatima Monsour comes to Paris from the village of Djerba in Tunisia, in order to work for the exacting Countess Poulais du Roc and finds her way gradually into the elderly lady's mellowing heart. As an illiterate foreigner in a strange land, Fatima is at first lost and forlorn, but gradually acquires courage, new skills and an eclectic group of friends: Hadley Hadley III, an American writer; Victorine, the voluptuous Senegalese housemaid; and Hippolyte Suget, a charming former ballet dancer with a dubious past. I have given it a four-star rating, deducting a star for quality of writing. It is written in a casual American style, and is easy to read; however, it is not of a consistently high calibre. Overall, this is a recommended "feel-good" story, which is not to be missed.

I read "Fatima's Good Fortune" in two sittings. I could hardly put it down and the characters I fell in love with are still alive in my mind. This book takes a reader on a magic carpet to the sights, smells and flavors of Paris, but it also creates a wonderful world of its own. The story is totally engrossing and although it's told with a sly simplicity it is full of reverberations about the ways of the world. The authors pay tribute in the book to Flaubert, and like their mentor, they have a limpid and lyric way of telling a story with lots of depth.