The Orchardist Pdf Summary Reviews By Amanda Coplin

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The Orchardist Pdf Summary

Set in the untamed American West, a highly original and haunting debut novel about a makeshift family whose dramatic lives are shaped by violence, love, and an indelible connection to the land.

You belong to the earth, and the earth is hard.

At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, a solitary orchardist named Talmadge carefully tends the grove of fruit trees he has cultivated for nearly half a century. A gentle, solitary man, he finds solace and purpose in the sweetness of the apples, apricots, and plums he grows, and in the quiet, beating heart of the land–the valley of yellow grass bordering a deep canyon that has been his home since he was nine years old. Everything he is and has known is tied to this patch of earth. It is where his widowed mother is buried, taken by illness when he was just thirteen, and where his only companion, his beloved teenaged sister Elsbeth, mysteriously disappeared. It is where the horse wranglers–native men, mostly Nez Perce–pass through each spring with their wild herds, setting up camp in the flowering meadows between the trees.

One day, while in town to sell his fruit at the market, two girls, barefoot and dirty, steal some apples. Later, they appear on his homestead, cautious yet curious about the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, Jane and her sister Della take up on Talmadage’s land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Yet just as the girls begin to trust him, brutal men with guns arrive in the orchard, and the shattering tragedy that follows sets Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect them, putting himself between the girls and the world, but to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.

Writing with breathtaking precision and empathy, Amanda Coplin has crafted an astonishing debut novel about a man who disrupts the lonely harmony of an ordered life when he opens his heart and lets the world in. Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, she weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune, bound by their search to discover the place they belong. At once intimate and epic, evocative and atmospheric, filled with haunting characters both vivid and true to life, and told in a distinctive narrative voice, The Orchardist marks the beginning of a stellar literary career.

The National Book Foundation selected Amanda Coplin as one of the authors being honored as “5 Under 35” in 2013.

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The Orchardist Review

S. Warfield

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning debut novel from Amanda Coplin
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2013

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I am always amazed when an author’s debut novel becomes a piece of literary fiction that won’t be forgotten very easily or very soon. Amanda Coplin’s “The Orchardist” is a story that captures the mood, time, place and the personalities of very interesting characters who evolve into people that I really cared about and had concern for their outcomes.

The character of William Talmadge who lived in a cabin in Washington state in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century was a man of few words who tended to his large orchards that grew apples, apricots and plums among other fruits. Talmadge had lived alone all his life since his mother had died years ago, and his one friend was Caroline Middey, a midwife and herbal healer who lived in town. Talmadge and Caroline shared a lot of meals and talks with few words on each others’ porches over the years. Talmadge was a quiet man, tended to his orchard and enjoyed his solitude. That is, until two pregnant runaway teenage girls showed up at the edge of his orchard one day, not saying a word, but they were obviously distressed and very hungry.

Talmadge began to feed the girls and fixed up a place in an old cabin on the property for them to sleep in, but they rarely spoke at all, and Talmadge kept his silence, too. After enough time had passed, the girls started to warm up to Talmadge and they became like his own kin, especially the daughter of one of them.

The author uses no quotation marks, which I didn’t notice at first because I’ve read other books written in this way. I found that I liked it quite a lot because the interruption of the punctuation marks left the dialogue unhindered and more free and natural and it flowed along much better. Language evolves, so maybe this will be something that will change in future rules of our written language. Oddly enough, the next book I picked up and started to read uses no quotation marks, either. (The Dog Stars by Peter Heller)

There are some very lovely lines in this book that describe the orchard and the avenues through it, the harvesting of the fruit and then selling it. One thing is clear. Being the owner of a large orchard is no easy job, and for one man it was a day-in and day-out labor of love that left time for little else but eating and sleeping. In a way it was a way of life as described in the book that was simple but appealing. Talmadge’s love of the land and orchard occupied his days, his evenings were spent with dinner preparation and then sleep in order to get up and start over. A simple life lived by a kind and loving man. When the two girls arrive and babies are born, he is no longer alone and that’s a new feeling that Talmadge embraces, too.

Excellent writing with characters who will not soon be forgotten and neither will the orchard that was tended by William Talmadge.

Babbo

4.0 out of 5 stars Author Amanda Coplin’s beautiful and gritty tale of life in the Pacific Northwest …
Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2015

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Author Amanda Coplin’s beautiful and gritty tale of life in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the 20th Century encompasses the story of a lonely orchardist and his struggle to recover from the loss of his young sister, Elsbeth. After their father was killed in a mine accident, Talmadge’s mother brought him and his sister to the orchard to start a new life. His mother dies when Talmadge and Elsbeth are barely teenagers, so they must fend for themselves. Talmadge is devastated when his sister mysteriously disappears from the orchard. Caroline Middey, the local herbalist, nurses him through his grief and becomes his closest friend along with Clee, a wild horse wrangler, who comes to the orchard each year with his men. Talmadge has spent 40 years growing apples, apricots and plums in the isolated Washington high valley, mourning his loss, never knowing what happened to Elsbeth. Did she run away? Was she abducted?
For decades, Talmadge sells his fruit in the nearby small town and doesn’t venture far. But trouble eventually finds him. Two skittish and half-starved young girls, both pregnant, descend upon his orchard scavenging for food. He leaves plates of food — fried trout, or corncakes and fried apples — on the porch of his cabin, and asks around in town. Jane and her younger sister Della, orphans in their early teens, have escaped from a brothel run by a sadistic opium addict named Michaelson. And Michaelson wants them back. Talmadge’s life has been so quiet, and he himself is not much of a talker, but the appearance of Jane and Della set him on a course that changes his life forever.
His mother told him that life on the land was hard, but Talmadge had withstood it and built a life he was content with. But he discovers that love is even harder than the land he spent his life toiling over, but that does not stop him from trying to protect Jane and Della, and the child they leave behind.
Coplin’s novel is a spellbinding adventure filled with vivid, complex characters and a powerful story. The book is a journey to the American West and the changes brought on by the 20th Century. You won’t regret the trip.

About Amanda Coplin Author Of The Orchardist pdf Book

Amanda Coplin Author Of The Orchardist pdf Book, She is a native of Washington State, Amanda Coplin has been a Fellow at The Fine Arts Work Centre in Provincetown, Massachusetts, as well as Ledig House International Writers’ Residency Program in Ghent, New York. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.