Helpful Score: 6
I found the characters well-written and well-developed, although I found myself scratching my head at times at why the characters did the things they did. It was a debut novel, so I do believe the novel was a bit lengthy and could have used more editing. I did enjoy learning about apricots and apple orchards though.
Helpful Score: 5
The Orchardist is a disturbing read; only because my book club selected it, did I continue to the end. The author was able to articulare her characters, but the plot - sex, violence, and tragic ends to tragic lives - left me sad. Do not recommend.
Helpful Score: 1
The book opens with two sisters, starving and very pregnant, stealing fruit from a stand operated by Talmadge in 1900 Cascade mountains area. Talmadge is a lonely man and it doesn't bother him that they have stolen his fruit. Soon they follow him to his Orchard and watch him from the woods. He knows they are watching and leaves food for them.
He sees a wanted posted naming them as Jane and Della posted by an opium addict and rapist who has impregnated both and once them back along with their children. Talmadge is a lonely man. His father died when he was nine. His mother died when he was 12 but not before she took them to this spot and bought the property. He had a younger sister who disappeared when he was 17. Did she run away? Was she murdered or abducted? There is never an answer in this book. It's not a fairy story.
He has been haunted by her death ever since and it's forty years later. He has two friends: a Nez Pierce horse wrangler who is mute and an herbalist and midwife, Caroline. Ultimately Jane and Della settle into his home still uncertain and deliver their babies. Only one survives. Then Michaelson comes to the orchard to collect his "property."
Talmadge pays him off, but not before something terrible happens. Talmadge devotes his life to caring for the surviving baby they name Angelene. A review I read says that Angelene's final scene is reminiscent of Wuthering Heights in it's stark grandeur. I plan to reread that one since I read it last in high school, but I still remember it so well.
This book was absolutely wonderful. I hope the writer publishes another one soon. This was published 2012. With luck she has a few more books in her. She was only 31 when this was published.
To be honest I scratched my head at some of the reviews. This isn't an easy book, but as it goes on and on it sweeps you away. I loved it and highly recommend it.
He sees a wanted posted naming them as Jane and Della posted by an opium addict and rapist who has impregnated both and once them back along with their children. Talmadge is a lonely man. His father died when he was nine. His mother died when he was 12 but not before she took them to this spot and bought the property. He had a younger sister who disappeared when he was 17. Did she run away? Was she murdered or abducted? There is never an answer in this book. It's not a fairy story.
He has been haunted by her death ever since and it's forty years later. He has two friends: a Nez Pierce horse wrangler who is mute and an herbalist and midwife, Caroline. Ultimately Jane and Della settle into his home still uncertain and deliver their babies. Only one survives. Then Michaelson comes to the orchard to collect his "property."
Talmadge pays him off, but not before something terrible happens. Talmadge devotes his life to caring for the surviving baby they name Angelene. A review I read says that Angelene's final scene is reminiscent of Wuthering Heights in it's stark grandeur. I plan to reread that one since I read it last in high school, but I still remember it so well.
This book was absolutely wonderful. I hope the writer publishes another one soon. This was published 2012. With luck she has a few more books in her. She was only 31 when this was published.
To be honest I scratched my head at some of the reviews. This isn't an easy book, but as it goes on and on it sweeps you away. I loved it and highly recommend it.
