The Orchardist Author: Amanda Coplin | Language: English | ISBN:
B007EDCZMW | Format: EPUB
The Orchardist Description
At once intimate and epic, The Orchardist is historical fiction at its best, in the grand literary tradition of William Faulkner, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Ondaatje, Annie Proulx, and Toni Morrison.
In her stunningly original and haunting debut novel, Amanda Coplin evokes a powerful sense of place, mixing tenderness and violence as she spins an engrossing tale of a solitary orchardist who provides shelter to two runaway teenage girls in the untamed American West, and the dramatic consequences of his actions.
- File Size: 687 KB
- Print Length: 453 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 006218850X
- Publisher: Harper; Reprint edition (February 20, 2013)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
- Language: English
- ASIN: B007EDCZMW
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,566 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #27
in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns - #29
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns - #50
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Historical
- #27
in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns - #29
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns - #50
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Historical
The Orchardist: A Novel is the remarkable achievement of debut novelist Amanda Coplin...storytelling at the hand of a young writer so masterful, to read it is to be transported to another time, another place - to the world of an alternative family of characters who will wrench your heart, touch your soul, and leave you feeling richer for having gained access to their interior landscapes.
There is a relentless stoicism about this novel of intense imagery and descriptive exactitude. With luminous, clear prose all the sensations of the world of the orchardist are evoked, such as the smell of apricot blossoms or rich garden soil; the taste of green apples or wild honeysuckle; the sounds of the wind or bird song in the fruit trees; the shimmering play of light in the plum orchard at sunset or moon shine and countless stars on a clear night; the coldness of the creek water on a hot, humid afternoon or the warmth under a quilt in the bitter cold; the satisfaction of solitude or the emptiness of loss.
But who is the orchardist? I would say there are really two: most definitely the makeshift patriarch of his foster family, William Talmadge, but also one of his adoptees, the girl child who by his own hands was delivered into this world in his very orchard, the beautiful Angelene Michaelson.
Their story takes place in the Pacific Northwest, primarily on a piece of remote and wild land near Wenatchee, Washington, owned and homesteaded by the solitary Talmadge. The story truly speaks of one being wedded to the land as well as of the vicissitudes of the frontier life that mold and shape character.
The Orchardist, set at the turn of the twentieth century in the orchard country of Washington State, is part historical fiction, part elegy for a kind of lost Arcadia. Talmadge, a reclusive and sorrowful man who tends apricots, apples, and plums in the unspoiled reaches of the Wenatchee Valley becomes a foster father to two adolescent girls, Jane and Della Michaelson, escapees from a brothel owner who has enslaved them. In time, he becomes a foster father to Angelene, Jane's child. However, it is with the cold and emotionally damaged Della that his life becomes inextricably bound, even though she lives with him for only a few years.
At times, the novel evokes the history of the region: the coming of the railroad, the spread of large-scale orchards and distribution centers, the timber camps, the diminishing presence of the native tribes. (Oddly, there is almost no mention of Washington's tumultuous labor history in this period, although Della works in both a cannery and a timber camp.) However, the intent of the novel does not seem to be toward true historical fiction; instead, there is just enough period detail to sketch in the era.
The larger intent of The Orchardist is a poetic impulse; it seeks to convey the natural beauties of the region, as well as the powerful impression of place on human character and conduct. In this, Coplin is not entirely successful. This is a long novel (425 pages) and there are many many paragraphs devoted to descriptions of the landscape. These reverential passages, as well as the use of lengthy interior monologues, slow the novel down after a time.
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