At the Edge of the Orchard
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3.6 • 21 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'A wonderful book; rich, evocative, original. I loved it' Joanne Harris
“One in ten trees comes up sweet…”
In the inhospitable Black Swamp of Ohio, the Goodenough family are barely scratching out a living. Life there is harsh, tempered only by the apples they grow for eating and for the cider that dulls their pain. Hot-headed Sadie and buttoned-up James are a poor match, and Robert and his sister Martha can only watch helplessly as their parents tear each other apart. One particularly vicious fight sends Robert out alone across America, far from his sister, to seek his fortune among the mighty redwoods and sequoias of Gold Rush California. But even across a continent, he can feel the pull of family loyalties…
Reviews
Praise for At the Edge of the Orchard:
‘Chevalier’s prose is by turns muscular, raw and sumptuous… a delight’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
‘Chevalier has carved out a middle-point between writing literary fiction and its page-turning, commercial counterpart and this book will serve both those audiences’ INDEPENDENT
‘A rollicking yarn of 19-century America’ THE TIMES
‘A densely packed tale of fruit, roots, family and hardship’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A wonderful book; rich, evocative, original. I loved it’ Joanne Harris
‘A stunning read’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
‘A kind of arboreal love song … an absorbing depiction of the harshness of pioneer life and the impossibility of escaping familial ties’ MAIL ON SUNDAY
‘Dark, brutal, moving, powerful’ Jane Harris
‘Powerfully realised … [A] fine novel’ DAILY MAIL
‘It’s her best since Girl with a Pearl Earring, telling the story both of America and a pioneer family with acuity, freshness and zest. I was captivated by it’ Amanda Craig
‘Tracy Chevalier serves up a rollicking yarn of 19th-century America. What Deborah Moggach did for tulips, Chevalier may well do for apples’ THE TIMES
‘This novel of raw beauty touches themes Chevalier explored in her novel, The Last Runaway. It’s a richly rewarding read’ EXPRESS
‘With Chevalier’s excellent storytelling ability and gift for creating memorable characters, this novel paints a vivid picture of the hard and rough-hewn life of American pioneers on their Westward journey’ STARRED LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW
‘Wonderful descriptions of apple grafting and plant-hunting in a 19th century New World America. Chevalier weaves an enthralling, feverish narrative through a backdrop of exploratory horticulture’ TOAST
About the author
Tracy Chevalier is the author of eight novels, including
The Last Runaway, Remarkable Creatures and Girl with a Pearl Earring an international bestseller that has sold over five million copies and won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award. Born in Washington DC, in 1984 she moved to London, where she lives with her husband and son.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
At the Edge of the Orchard brims with passion. Tracy Chevalier, author of the bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, takes us back to the late 19th century, to the godforsaken backwaters of Ohio known as Black Swamp. There, James and Sadie Goodenough and their five surviving children live a harsh existence, scrambling to protect their apple orchard from the encroaching wilderness, stretch out their meagre supplies and fend off a deadly fever. Like their surroundings, the elder Goodenoughs are unpredictable and violent. Chevalier shifts among different points of view to spin this gripping tale, which eventually tracks the couple’s youngest son as he gets swept up in the California Gold Rush. Like the best historical fiction, this novel transported us to a different time and place, making the present fade away.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chevalier may not be able to trump her wildly successful second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, but her eighth outing is a compelling showcase of 19th-century American pioneering spirit in which a family from Connecticut struggles to establish an apple orchard in the swamplands of Ohio. James Goodenough can trace his family and his beloved Golden Pippin apples back to England, though he seeks his own future away from his family's farm. The story of his adventure going west unfolds from his point of view as well as from that of Sadie, his contentious wife, a tough woman with a wild libido and a hankering for applejack. True-life figure John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed) plays a role in the Goodenoughs' fortunes, as does British plant collector William Lobb, who becomes a key figure to James and Sadie's youngest son, Robert, when circumstances force him to flee Ohio and make his own life on the West Coast. Against a backdrop of family travails in Ohio and personal revelations in California come intriguing facts about apples, such as their division into "eaters" and "spitters" (used for apple cider and applejack), as well as how American pine trees, redwoods, and Sequoias were painstakingly introduced to England. The author's insightful observations about domestic life and the pull of relationships bring depth to a family story that inevitably comes full circle in a most satisfying way.
