The Rock Orchard: A Novel

by Paula Wall

Overview

Some women can touch a man and heal like Jesus. The man who sees sunrise from a Belle woman's bed will swear he's been born again.

When it came to men, Charlotte Belle strictly ascribed to the law of catch and release. As soon as she could get a man out of her bed, she threw him back in the stream. No, Charlotte did not need a man. She had money. She had her driver, Mr. Nalls, for heavy lifting. Sex? Her pond was well stocked. What else does a woman need a man for? And so it comes as quite a surprise to Charlotte that she can not stop thinking about the Reverend Thomas Jones.

In The Rock Orchard, debut novelist Paula Wall uses sexy, lyrical prose -- and throws in a dash of magic -- to create a truly unique and hysterical love story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780743496230
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	01/03/2006
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Paula Wall is the author of two collections of short pieces, My Love Is Free...But the Rest of Me Don't Come Cheap and If I Were a Man, I'd Marry Me. The latter was a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize. She currently lives outside of Nashville in a converted barn on 150 acres at the foot of the Highland Rim. Her nearest neighbor is one mile down the road, which, frankly, is a little too close for comfort. The Rock Orchard is her first novel. Visit her website at www.PaulaWall.com.

Hometown:

Nashville, Tennessee

Date of Birth:

1954

Place of Birth:

Clarksville, Tennessee

Education:

B.S., Environmental Science, Austin Peay State University

Website:

http://www.paulawall.com

Read an Excerpt

Preface

Just because a woman is good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's what she should do in life. If that were the case, most of the women in the Belle family would be hookers. It is common knowledge that Belle women make hard men melt like butter in a pan. They are equally adept at reversing the process.

The Belles live in a house that sits on a bluff overlooking the river. It has the look of a place whose owners grew bored with their money long ago. Honeysuckle vines wind around the columns like thread on a spool, and roses, wild as weeds, scratch at the paint like chiggers. It's a mystery where the lawn ends and the cemetery begins. The Belles are of the mind that dead people make the best neighbors.

Several years back, in an effort to turn our boring little town into a tourist trap, the historical society put up a brass plaque outside the Belles' gate declaring the old house an historic site.

Bellereve, the plaque reads, was built in 1851 by Colonel Bedford Braxton Belle for his bride, Musette. During the War Between the States it was used as a hospital for soldiers of both armies who were wounded at the battle of Fort Donelson.

History, of course, is never real. People either glorify it or horrify it. Or at the very least color it. What the sign doesn't say is that the fingerprints of slaves are baked into the brick and that when the rain sets in, no matter how many times they plaster and paint, the blood of soldiers seeps through the ceiling and watery red drops drip from the chandelier like tears.

Nor does the sign say that Musette was Cajun French and the second wife of Bedford Braxton Belle. The first Mrs. Belle was neither dead nor divorced, but Musette had a way about her that made a man forget his wife — and forget to breathe.

Musette had black hair and black eyes and could read the future better than most men could read the newspaper. And if she didn't like what she saw, she set out to change it.

"L'avenir n'est pas taillé dans la pierre," she'd say, as she slowly turned over the cards, "seulement votre épitaphe."

Loosely translated it means: "The future isn't carved in stone, only your epitaph."

They say Musette could dip her hand in the river and foretell the exact day it would freeze. She could lay her hand over a baby's heart and see his life as if he'd already lived it. Musette predicted fires, floods and tornadoes, and a month before Yankee soldiers marched across the Tennessee state line, she made the servants tear every sheet, petticoat, and pillowcase in the house into strips and roll them into bandages.

Despite her flawless track record, Bedford Braxton Belle wouldn't listen when she told him hard liquor would be the death of him. You can lead a horse to water, but a jackass takes his whiskey straight up. Musette lost her husband at the Battle of Franklin when a Union soldier shot him dead while he was drunkenly relieving himself under a persimmon tree. We rest easy knowing he didn't feel a thing.

Braxton Belle's life didn't bear enough fruit to fill a Dixie cup. But few men rise to the occasion. Most leave nothing more to show for their time on this earth than a stone to mark where their bones are buried. Musette wore black for the rest of her life, but then black was always her best color. And not a day passed that she didn't brush the leaves from Braxton's grave and kiss his granite marker. History may sweep aside the ordinary man, but women have a memory like flypaper.

Women love who they love, there is no rhyme or reason. Musette never loved another man; however, she didn't object to men loving her. They say she welcomed more men into her harbor than the Statue of Liberty. Despite the fact that every wife, widow, and spinster in town prayed for her early demise, Musette lived to be an old woman and died in her sleep. They buried her body in the cemetery next to the house overlooking the river, but her spirit lingers like a lover's perfume.

Musette's grave is marked with a white marble likeness of her that is so real, if you stare too long, you'll swear her head turns your way and her stone breast rises and falls. Naked as a jaybird, she stares a man straight in the eyes with a look on her face that is far from pious. On either side of her, fully robed angels, hands folded in prayer, gaze longingly toward heaven as if to say, "Lord, help us."

One man's art is another man's ache, and Musette continues to be as big a pain in the ass dead as she was alive. For over a hundred years the aesthetically challenged have frigidly fought to have Musette removed — or at the very least, covered.

But money beats morality like paper beats rock. When an art professor from Nashville scrubbed the moss off the base and found "Rodin" carved into the stone, the balance of power shifted. The historical society immediately threw up a brass plaque declaring Musette an historic monument. Now scholars come from miles around to debate whether she is indeed an authentic Rodin of Paris, or an authentic Bodin from Memphis, whose family has been carving top-notch tombstones for as far back as anyone can remember.

Wherever the truth lies — and around these parts truth reclines on a regular basis — many a young man has familiarized himself with the female anatomy while studying the statue of Musette Belle, just as quite a few of their ancestors learned from studying the real thing. Even in death Musette continues to shock the good citizens of Leaper's Fork, and her descendants are doing their best to carry on her legacy.

Musette begat Solange, who begat Charlotte and Odette, who begat Angela, who begat Dixie. If there is one thing Belle women are fond of, it is begetting.

Some women barter their bodies like whores with wedding bands. Some use sex like a sword. But some women can touch a man and heal like Jesus. The man who sees sunrise from a Belle woman's bed will swear he's been born again.

Copyright © 2005 by Paula Wall

Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Questions:
1. In the preface we are introduced to Musette Belle and her ability to "read the future." Most Belle women have retained this gift of "sight." In what other ways do the Belle women see differently? How do they use this gift to enrich their community?

2. What similarities do Angela and Charlotte share? What makes them distinctly different? What do you think these characters learn from each other?
3. "The Rock Orchard" of the title is a reference to a cemetery. "A cemetery is like an orchard. Some lives were sweet. Some bitter as lemons. And some were rotten to the core." The cemetery in Leaper's Fork is practically a character in itself - a place that figures especially in the lives of the Belle women, often in unexpected ways. In this way the cemetery sheds its stigma as a place of sadness and death. Discuss the cemetery as a place of happiness and rebirth. How does the cemetery serve as a turning point for Charlotte? For Lydia? For Reverend Thomas?
4. Reba Earhart and Mila are just two of the many people Charlotte inspires. "You are what you are, till you decide to be different," she says. Compare and contrast these two women - how did they both succumb to the initial lots they had drawn in life? What patterns of behavior did they share? How did they go about changing those patterns? How did they perpetuate the chain of inspiration in others around them?
5. Empowerment is an important factor throughout the novel. How do various characters overcome their circumstances? Does empowerment always come in the form of financial wealth? Where else do these characters find power?
6. What was the significance of Levon Sevier initiating the kiss at his and KyAnn's wedding?
7. Charlotte is described as having "a man's mind" and frequently engages in behaviors stereotypically reserved for men, such as drinking and smoking cigars. Discuss the reversal of gender stereotypes found throughout the novel. How does it change the reader's point of view on gender roles in society? Are the characters who adhere to the classic gender stereotypes viewed differently from those who break out of their gender roles?
8. The Belles, KyAnn Merriweather, and Julia Mercer are independent women who take ownership of their sexuality. This intimidates some, and inspires others. By the end of the novel, both KyAnn and Charlotte are married. Does this in any way undermine their independence? Why or why not?

9. Throughout the novel we see a variety of partnerships - business, friendship, marriage, religious, and sometimes a blend of two or more. Discuss some of the partnerships found in The Rock Orchard. Which were most successful? Which surprised you most?
10. While national and world events are occasionally mentioned in The Rock Orchard, much of the story seems to take place in a suspended space and time. Why do you think this is? How does it help the plot? Does it hurt the story in any way?
11. Where do you see Charlotte, Angela,and Dixie in the next five years? In what ways will they have changed? In what ways will they remain the same?
12. Just for fun, imagine you are a casting director working on a film version of The Rock Orchard. Discuss whom you would cast to play some of the main characters and why. Who would you cast for Charlotte? Angela? KyAnn? Adam? Lydia? Boone?

Editorial Reviews

"Wall's created a crystalline world so full of one-of-a-kind characters...you can't help but enjoy your visit."

-- New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult

"The legendary Belle family women of Leaper's Fork, Tennessee, sparkle to life in this fine debut novel."

-- Publishers Weekly

"Wall's writing...sizzles."

-- Nashville Scene

From the Publisher

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
"It is common knowledge that Belle Women make hard men melt like butter in a pan," writes novelist Wall, adding, "They are equally adept at reversing the process." If you find such sentiments appealing, then spirit yourself away to Leaper's Fork, Tennessee, and immerse yourself in the very southern world of Charlotte, Angela, and Dixie Belle: three generations of Belles, and the subjects of this jaunty, sexy debut.

The Belle women are part of an old and wealthy family descended from a Confederate colonel. One neighbor calls them "white trash with money." But their greatest asset, to put it mildly, is feminine charm. Just ask Boston-bred Dr. Adam Montgomery, who moves in next door with his Yankee fiancée, only to be smitten by Angela the moment he lays eyes on her. Or ask Reverend Thomas Jones, another newcomer to Leaper's Fork, to whom Charlotte applies her feminine wiles as she endeavors to help him inter his long, sad past.

Old money verses new, South versus North, hypocrisy verses honesty, prejudice versus love -- these are heavy themes, to be sure. And yet Wall handles them deftly, in a tone so confident and breezy that the pages seem to turn themselves. A resident of Nashville, Wall has a gift for fiction, a gift she employs to great effect in this marvelous novel about the transformative power of love. (Spring 2005 Selection)

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