The Orchardist

The Orchardist by Amanda Chopin is a novel tak­ing place in Wash­ing­ton State at the early part of the 20thCen­tury. This is Chopin's first book and is a majes­tic debut, a new book which reads like an old friend.

William Tal­madge had had a hard life, orphaned at an early age and los­ing his sis­ter mys­te­ri­ously, he made his liv­ing from a suc­cess­ful orchard which draw in all his tal­ents and energy. Tal­madge takes in two run­away teenager, sis­ters who were both abused and pregnant.

Life is rough inWash­ing­ton­State­and Tal­madge is repaid for his gen­eros­ity with a series of events marked with tragedy and vio­lence, as well as a few glim­mers of joy.

The Orchardist by Amanda Chopin is a beau­ti­fully writ­ten and haunt­ing novel, a mood not usu­ally cap­tured by first time authors. The prose is lyri­cal and the char­ac­ters enchant­ing, even though they might not be like­able they grow on the reader and make one invest in their future.

The rea­son I requested to be on the tour for this book is actu­ally quite nos­tal­gic. Many years ago, what seems like 100 years ago (and unfor­tu­nately, what seems like 100 lbs. as well) I walked along the Inca Trail in Bolivia(slightly less famous than its Peru­vian coun­ter­part which I walked sev­eral weeks later). After a few days we came upon an orchard in the Andes Moun­tains, ran by a Japan­ese orchardist (still inBo­livia) who let us stay the night and eat as much fruit as we can.

I also worked in an orchard for a few years, back in Israel- a dif­fi­cult yet reward­ing job which I often view with rose col­ored glasses.
So you see, my fas­ci­na­tion with orchards has been life­long, the smell of an orange orchard brings a back many sweet mem­o­ries, I sim­ply could not pass up this book.

The depic­tion of the land and the fron­tier land­scape are writ­ten with clar­ity and sen­si­bil­ity as well as incor­po­rat­ing the char­ac­ters within it. The style worked very well for this novel because the peo­ple were part of the land, cul­ti­vated by it and not the other way around.

"But the next day he stood in the mid­sec­tion of an apple tree and saw them come mean­der­ing down the orchard rows. He con­tin­ued with the shears in the high branches and watched them indi­rectly. They stopped down the row from him and sat in the grass."

The theme of the book, peo­ple don't get over their losses, is estab­lished early on, about a quar­ter through the book. How­ever the Amer­i­can sense of opti­mism which every­thing will work out and good things will hap­pen is always present regard­less of the chal­lenges Chopin throws at her characters.

The prose is beau­ti­fully writ­ten, but at time overly stretched. That being said, the author's tal­ent shines through­out the book, I cer­tainly hopes she keeps on writ­ing and am look­ing for­ward to read many more books of qual­ity from her pen.Show Less