The Orchard
A Memoir
by Anne Frasier
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Pub Date Dec 27 2017 | Archive Date Jan 28 2018
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Description
MEMOIR
Due to publishing rights and restrictions, this edition of The Orchard is not available for purchase in the USA or Canada. You will not be able to leave a review on Amazon.com. Please leave reviews on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com.au, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, etc. Thank you very much!
When a thriller author writes a memoir, something interesting happens.
In her critically acclaimed memoir, New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier (The Body Reader, Play Dead, Hush) shares the deeply moving and personal story of her years on an apple farm. The Orchard is the story of a street-smart city girl who must adapt to a new life on an apple farm after she falls for the golden boy of a prominent local family whose lives and orchards seem to be cursed. Married after only three months, the young writer finds life on the farm far more difficult and dangerous than she expected. Rejected by her husband's family as an outsider, she slowly learns for herself about the isolated world of farming, environmental destruction, and death, even as she falls more deeply in love with her husband, a man she at first hardly knew. When the increasingly dangerous chemicals used on farms begin to take a toll on the land and the people who tend it, the couple's fragile love will be tested as they right to defend ground that has been in his family for generations. An unforgettable story of struggle, resilience, and love in the American heartland, The Orchard will change the way you think about farmers and family.
Cover art by Martha M. WeirThis title was previously published exclusively in United States and Canada by Grand Central Publishing (The Orchard, a memoir, by Theresa Weir).
Nicholas Sparks: "The Orchard is a lovely book in all the ways that really matter, one of those rare and wonderful memoirs in which people you've never met become your friends. I read it in a single sitting, lost in the story, and by the time I put it down, I was amazed by the author's ability to evoke such genuine emotion. Read it: you'll be glad you did.
"A hypnotic tale of place, people, and of Midwestern family roots that run deep, stubbornly hidden, and equally menacing--The Orchard is sublime and enchanting." --Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.
Librarians' Best Books of the Year: "While reading this extraordinarily moving memoir, I kept remembering the last two lines of Muriel Rukeyser's poem "Kathe Kollwitz" ("What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open"), for [Frasier] proffers a worldview that is at once eloquent, sincere, and searing."
Library JournaI: "Eerie and atmospheric, this is an indie movie in print. You'll read and read to see where it is going, although it's clear early on that the future is not going to be kind to anyone involved. [Frasier's] story is more proof that only love can break your heart."
O, The Oprah Magazine Fall Read: "This poignant memoir of love, labor, and dangerous pesticides reveals the terrible true price."
B+ Featured Review in Entertainment Weekly: "...equal parts moving love story and environmental warning."
Macleans.ca: "...a gripping account of divided loyalties, the real cost of farming and the shattered people on the front lines. Not since Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres has there been so enrapturing a family drama percolating out from the back forty."
Roanoke Times: "A poignant and merciless memoir that portrays a pivotal moment in American farming...Her prose is efficient and, in very few words, evokes feelings that linger long after the book is finished."
Publishers Lunch: "This memoir is viscera encapsulated, of young, passionate love and shattering tragedy around the corner, of a horrible childhood redeemed by motherhood and literary output in secret, of not fitting in until you make everything fit you... One of the favorite books of the year."
BookPage: "A finely wrought story... In such unforgiving soil, [Frasier's] growth over the years is remarkable. She raises two children, nurtures her marriage and comes into her own as a writer. Her journey, at times lonely and sad, is ultimately triumphant. Readers will be glad she found a home for this brave book."
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
US edition reviews with links: http://bit.ly/2zExsSk
US edition reviews with links: http://bit.ly/2zExsSk
Marketing Plan
Release of best-selling memoir outside US and Canada.
Release of best-selling memoir outside US and Canada.
Available Editions
EDITION | Ebook |
ISBN | 9781973581895 |
PRICE | £4.89 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
This was a fascinating read. It's a memoir, a love story, a scream at the state of modern farming, and it's about apples. I have an orchard myself. A small, domestic orchard, unsprayed, hand pruned, full of old, local varieties. I've read quite a few books about orchards, and they've all been English orchards, and the books have all been about connecting with a traditional way of life. These books show the orchard as a romantic place full of romantic people doing romantic things with apples.
This is a completely different book. Its a romance, but it's not romantic. A girl with a car crash life meets a boy with a messed up back story, and they fall in love. They move into a shack on his parents' farm. They are both emotionally abused by their parents - he's held too tightly, she's pushed away - but somehow they work together. Anne Frasier uses flashbacks to tell the story of her childhood and adolescence. She shows us a world of rural poverty, where farmers put themselves and their families at risk to keep their farms going, because the farm is the most important thing of all. There's a cloud of pesticide floating through this book, permeating the pages the way it permeates everything on the farm. The thing that keeps the farm alive creates the tragedy that is killing the farm.
It's one of those books that makes you feel you can relax back. Not that it's an easy subject, it's more that Anne Frasier's writing style makes you feel you are in a safe pair of hands. Whatever happens, her writing is going to carry you through in utter belief that this is real. Nothing is going to jar and break the spell.
I don't generally pick up memoirs, but Anne Frasier is one of my favorites. This book reads like fiction; I couldn't put it down. Her life hasn't always been easy, but her words are so poetic she makes you long for the struggles and beauty she has experienced. I feel lucky that she has shared her story with us. Thank you to Netgalley for letting me read this as it is not available to buy in the US. If you can get a copy, though, you should.