Sunday, April 9, 2017

The Orchardist - Amanda Coplin

I've had this book for awhile.  I'd picked it up because it was listed as a NYT bestseller and had started it once and then put it aside.  The second time was better.

It's the story of two young girls who escape a bad situation and are taken in by a farmer who keeps an orchard in the Northwest.  There's a back story on how he ended up there when his parents migrated West.  The book is a study on relationships that exist with few words.  We read the thoughts of the characters, but they are rarely shared with others and when there is dialogue, it's sparse and carefully chosen.  A tender gem of a book.

Some quotes I marked:

"And that was the point of children...to bind us to the earth and to the present, to distract us from death. A distraction dressed as a blessing: but dressed so well, and so truly, that it became a blessing.  Or maybe it was the other way around: a blessing first, before a distraction.  Caroline Middey scrutinized the point; did not know if the distinction was important (All distinctions are important.)  But she did not think any more about it because at her back, suddenly , the child work from her nap, and she rose at once to go to her."
 "When one is young, he thought, one thinks that one will never know oneself.  But the knowledge comes later, if not all, then some.  An important amount." 

Published: 2012  Read: March 2016  Genre: Fiction


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