The Forgetting Tree

Jul 27, 2012 Jeanette rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, america, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, av

Rating = 2.5 stars

THE FORGETTING TREE begins with a tragic loss and ends with a long-delayed renewal. The bulk of the novel deals with what happens in between these two events, showing the gradual changes that become the impetus for a dramatic rebirth of sorts.

The loss of ten-year-old Joshua leads to the eventual dissolution of the Baumsarg family. The mother Claire is left living alone in the family home on their California citrus farm. Her ex-husband Forster has found someone new, and daughte...more Rating = 2.5 stars

THE FORGETTING TREE begins with a tragic loss and ends with a long-delayed renewal. The bulk of the novel deals with what happens in between these two events, showing the gradual changes that become the impetus for a dramatic rebirth of sorts.

The loss of ten-year-old Joshua leads to the eventual dissolution of the Baumsarg family. The mother Claire is left living alone in the family home on their California citrus farm. Her ex-husband Forster has found someone new, and daughters Gwen and Lucy can't stand to be on that isolated farm with their mother and her painful memories.

Years later, breast cancer treatments require that a caregiver be found for Claire. Enter Minna, a young woman of dubious motives and questionable background. Here is where the story began to break down for me in terms of both interest and plausibility. I could not buy that Claire would just hire this girl Lucy found at a Starbucks, with no references or background checks.

If Claire's tragedies and illness left her feeling frail and vulnerable, she would be LESS trusting of strangers, not more so, especially given the fact that she would be alone with this person in a remote location. And if Claire did act too hastily in hiring Minna, she would have quickly rectified her mistake when she and her neighbors compared notes and found that Minna's stories didn't add up.

The premise we're meant to accept is that Claire is so needy and Minna is so exotic and interesting that Claire is just besotted, willing to let Minna call the shots, even when the house is disintegrating around them. It just didn't work for me. I can't say much more about it for fear of spoilers.

I also found the reading a trifle tedious in that long stretch where Minna and Claire are living in the house together, mostly lazing around, with Minna doing her weird ritualistic stuff. It felt like I spent almost the whole book waiting for something to happen. When things DO finally start to happen close to the end, it's very dramatic and exciting and a little spooky. But it takes an awfully long time to get to that point where both Claire and Minna reach for renewal and irrevocable change.

I loved Tatjana Soli's first novel, THE LOTUS EATERS, but THE FORGETTING TREE, though masterfully written, was less resonant for me. I will certainly look forward to her next book.
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Jul 20, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 5 of 5 stars

This complex, mystifying, and terrifying novel begins very simply, with spare prose and a story of tragedy that strikes the family members of a 580-acre citrus ranch--the violent loss of a beloved son and brother.

Claire is a literary intellect from a scholarly family, the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, who falls in love with Forster, the son of German immigrants and a man of the land, a citrus farmer in California. Claire grows to understand the land, and to subsequently love the farm, to fee...more This complex, mystifying, and terrifying novel begins very simply, with spare prose and a story of tragedy that strikes the family members of a 580-acre citrus ranch--the violent loss of a beloved son and brother.

Claire is a literary intellect from a scholarly family, the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, who falls in love with Forster, the son of German immigrants and a man of the land, a citrus farmer in California. Claire grows to understand the land, and to subsequently love the farm, to feel sewn and hewn to it, especially after the death of their son, Josh. Their daughters, Gwen and Lucy, take different paths, and try to talk their mother into selling the land after the harrowing events that changed their lives forever.

The first part of the book didn't thoroughly draw me in. The tragedy/history was told in a stilted voice that removed me from the emotions and drama of the story at hand. However, once Claire hires an enigmatic and beautiful caregiver, Minna, a Caribbean woman who tells them that she is the great granddaughter of novelist Jean Rhys, both the prose and the plot develop with a stunning complexity, taking on a deeper patina, with a sinister and menacing tug at its center, as well as a profound and intricate force of beautiful narrative expression.

After the prosaic and somewhat sterile first half, the second half demonstrates that Soli's plotting and voice was a stylistic choice--deliberate, measured, finely tuned. The latter 200 pages were exceptionally imaginative, with resinous scenes and psychologically brilliant portrayals and insights. By the end of the story, I was gasping, and my heart was both engorged and impaled by the events, and Soli's writing. By the time I was in section III (out of IV), I knew I was in the hands of a masterful, labyrinthine writer, who combined aspects of gothic, folk, and historical writing into a dramatic and sometimes surreal saga.

How synchronous that I would read two books in a row about the passion and vicissitudes of farming an extensive orchard, the first being THE ORCHARDIST, by Amanda Coplin. Both novels explore themes of reverence and fealty to the land, and both have a middle-aged protagonist who invites an unknowable stranger(s) into his/her life, and grow to love them like daughters, and suffer great torment from the darkness of haunting pasts.

Lyrical and hypnotic, Soli's writing will keep you fastened to the story and characters. The relationship between Minna and Claire is unique and moving--as unforgettable as the "forgetting" lemon tree that is the touchstone of the orchard and the leitmotif of the novel's core paradoxical theme.

"...an unheard of thing happened in the orchard...the leaves on the citrus turned a burnt yellow...clung on for over a month, fresh and pliable and yellowed, then overnight every single one fell to the ground. A gold carpet upon which stood a barren stick forest. The bark turned hard as iron...

"The orchard's shock deeply moved Claire, as if the land itself had turned sentient, mirroring her belief that the only true love is the one tested...the land reached out to her, and she accepted...she'd survived, her son had not." (less)

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Nov 13, 2012 Kara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: blog-tour, adult-contemp, annoying-protagonist, arc, books-about-books, california, for-review, own, the-tough-stuff, so-glad-it-s-over, tlc-book-tours

This was a really weird book for me. Parts of it I enjoyed reading, I could tell the author knew how to weave a wonderful story, but it never really pulled me in. The book is divided into four parts, and for the first two, I wasn't really enjoying the book all that much. But once Minna entered the picture, I really became interested in where she came from and what she was all about. I never really liked her as a character (or any of the other characters, for that matter), but I did find her enig...more This was a really weird book for me. Parts of it I enjoyed reading, I could tell the author knew how to weave a wonderful story, but it never really pulled me in. The book is divided into four parts, and for the first two, I wasn't really enjoying the book all that much. But once Minna entered the picture, I really became interested in where she came from and what she was all about. I never really liked her as a character (or any of the other characters, for that matter), but I did find her enigmatic and I wanted to know more.

The main problem I personally had with The Forgetting Tree were the characters. I didn't like ANY of them. Well, I sort of liked Octavio, but he wasn't in the book long enough, and I wasn't able to develop a bond with him. The rest of the characters were just selfish, annoying, whiny, insane, or any combination of those characteristics.

Claire, our protagonist, was not a character I could root for or even really understand. I didn't GET her motivations. This is hard to talk about without spoilers, but I will just say this. Throughout the book she was a doormat and once Minna came into the story, she let Minna walk all over her and control her, even to the point of cutting off contact with her children, letting the ranch fall into disrepair, and harming her health. Didn't get it. At all. I guess I am just not empathetic toward that type of person. I felt much the same about most of the characters, but more so toward Claire just because she was in the book most often.

Here's the thing though. I can handle unlikable characters if I am enjoying the story, the writing is beautiful, or there is something else about the book I am entertained by. And I really wasn't with this book. Once we got into Minna's history and why she was the way she was, I found myself enjoying it more. But by that point, there were only 150 pages left in the book.

The writing was pretty uneven. I hated the writing style in the beginning. I was finding unnecessary comma splices, fragments, and the writing was awfully comma happy, which is a thing I personally cannot stand. That tapered off toward the middle of the book, and I found myself wondering if it was a stylistic choice. Either way, I did not really care for it. After the halfway point, I actually really found myself enjoying the writing and turning the pages. I appreciated that finally, the book had a good flow. I'm not sure what happened there, but the reason why I think it was stylistic was because of the whole Minna equation. Once she entered the picture, Claire went through a personality change--a bit of a metamorphosis--and I think the writing was trying to emulate that. It didn't work for me though.

As far as plot goes, for me the beginning was really slow. The death of Josh really didn't do much for me because I didn't feel anything for the characters. But once Minna entered the picture (see a recurring theme here?), I found myself enjoying more of what I was reading. This is why I gave the book three stars. It was quite a page turner at a certain point. And I really did appreciate the way the author incorporated theme and symbolism into the book's structure. But ultimately, I just didn't fall in love with this book the way I was hoping I would. It is a definite possibility that this could totally be a "me" thing. I think the right person really would enjoy this book more than I did.

Who do I recommend this book to? Lovers of the weird, lovers of books that make you uncomfortable, and readers that like psychologically strange works. If you like your head to be messed with and don't mind feeling confused, I think you may be the reader for this book.

Ultimately, I just didn't get the point, and the ending left me wondering what it all was for. (less)

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Sep 20, 2012 Elyse rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'd rate this book about a 3.5. (a little less than a 4)....
However, 'until' I got to PART 3 of this book ---I was 'sure' my rating would be a 5. My rating goes down at the start of PART 3 because....
something did not 'feel' right. Too many new characters were introduced (so late in the book: about 10 new characters--which I think is a lot to add towards the last quarter of a book because we just don't have the strong emotional connection to 'any' of them as much as the others). I felt less tim...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ugh, is easier to open a vein or put your head in an oven. I assume this book will be adapted into a horror movie at some point.

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Feb 12, 2013 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

The Forgetting Tree is one of those novels that I almost gave up reading, but continued in hopes that I would like it more, or that it would get better, or that I would appreciate the critics' positive reviews. That, however, didn't really happen. When I first started reading Tree, I was annoyed by Soli's writing style--I found the sentences to be short, choppy, incomplete and distracting. I did not feel that I was inside the head of the protagonist and privy to her thoughts, I just felt that th...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Kate Campbell rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to love The Forgetting Tree, set in California on a ranch, a connection to the environment, home to me. It is beautifully written. But, the character development and plot don’t hold up, there’s a reaching for a philosophical conclusion that just isn’t there. The story shifts about halfway through from a family saga to some kind of odd metaphysical Haitian voodoo theme and the story becomes simply implausible.

One reviewer asked: What kind of still-devoted ex-husband and loving daughters...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars

Actually it is probably a 3.5. The book is separated into four parts.

The first part was well written and tells the story of a family torn apart by and unspeakable tragedy.

In the second part, the family is separated as the children grow up and the parents divorce. Then the wife gets cancer and hires a care-taker with great charm, but no references. As the wife gets sicker and needier, the caretaker gets stranger and her actions take on an increasingly sinister tone.

In the 3rd part, the caretaker...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Leigh rated it 4 of 5 stars

With beautiful prose and pages of descriptive narrative that brings the California orchard to life, I felt I could almost smell the citrus trees while I was reading. Claire's initial observations about life in general in the first half of the book were truly enlightening and deeply moving. I, too, fell in love with the ranch and felt it would be a perfect place for a happy life in which to raise a family and nurture a marriage. I could completely identify with Claire's reluctance to leave the fa...more With beautiful prose and pages of descriptive narrative that brings the California orchard to life, I felt I could almost smell the citrus trees while I was reading. Claire's initial observations about life in general in the first half of the book were truly enlightening and deeply moving. I, too, fell in love with the ranch and felt it would be a perfect place for a happy life in which to raise a family and nurture a marriage. I could completely identify with Claire's reluctance to leave the farm, and I agree with her being stubborn about putting down roots, resisting development of the property, and creating something lasting.

The passages about her grief for her son, her protective nature toward her remaining two children, the trials of her marriage, Hanni's nostalgia for "things not yet lost" and many other feelings that one struggles with daily are written about richly and beautifully. . . . . and then . . . .

The second half of the book was hugely disappointing. With the beauty of the first part of the story, my expectations were such that it would continue in the same fashion. As Minna is introduced as a character, the entire storyline began to fail.

Claire's judgement and actions were so incredibly skewed that it was hard to fathom this was the same intelligent, strong woman from the previous chapters. Minna was an uninteresting character, in my opinion, and it seemed that she began to dominate the storyline. I distrusted Minna from the beginning and was angry with Soli for allowing Claire to become so incredibly stupid, dependent, clingy, desperate that she was willing to accept anything Minna demanded. And, if the author felt that by including those last passages about Minna's past would explain things, or elicit sympathy for her, she is wrong again. Nothing therein surprised me nor changed my opinion of Minna. I simply found the entire last half of the story impossible to believe, and what a terrible direction for the author to take after writing with such depth and insight early on.

The best way to sum up what happened here is that it started out similarly to Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and took a very dramatic turn to resemble Chris Cleeve's Little Bee and ended up just leaving me highly disappointed.

So, why am I giving it 4 stars? Because the first half was a very solid 5-stars and the second half bordered between a 2.5 and a 3. The two parts of the book are that different that one can easily separate them as if they were written by different authors, or written about completely different characters. Again, talented writing, but disappointing storyline direction and ending.

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Sep 25, 2012 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, fiction

I have mixed feelings about The Forgetting Tree. On the one hand, the prose was lush and poetic. I felt like I was in a melancholy fog right along with Claire as I was reading it. On the other hand, I could not relate to Claire or Minna at all. I think they both were mentally-ill in some way. I never found Minna to be a mysterious enigma - I found her to be crazy and mean. I couldn't understand why Claire was taken with her - sometimes I felt like it was mostly just because Minna was black and C...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Florinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Forgetting Tree almost feels like several novels in one. It's the story of a family in the aftermath of a horrible act of violence; it's an exploration of that family's ties to the land; it's the tale of a mysterious stranger who enters that family--told from both sides. It made we wonder at times whether Soli might have decided, at some point, to combine several originally unrelated story ideas and see what developed--which sounds a little haphazard, maybe, but for most part it seems to wor...more The Forgetting Tree almost feels like several novels in one. It's the story of a family in the aftermath of a horrible act of violence; it's an exploration of that family's ties to the land; it's the tale of a mysterious stranger who enters that family--told from both sides. It made we wonder at times whether Soli might have decided, at some point, to combine several originally unrelated story ideas and see what developed--which sounds a little haphazard, maybe, but for most part it seems to work, largely because most of it is centered on one character.

As the child of immigrants, Claire finds Forster Baumsarg's family legacy of citrus farming almost as appealing as Forster himself, and the early years of their marriage are about nurturing both the land and a growing family. Then tragedy strikes, and Claire clings more tightly to the farm than ever, even as her husband and daughters grow more apart from it, and from each other. Eventually Claire's the only one left...and she gets breast cancer. In need of a live-in companion while she goes through treatment, she welcomes a beautiful, intriguing West Indian woman into her home. Minna is mercurial and mysterious, but Claire may prefer her that way; it allows her to believe what she wants to believe about her. And then, just when the reader isn't entirely sure what to believe about Minna either, Soli completely switches gears to her perspective, although she ultimately returns the story to Claire.

The Forgetting Tree is a novel that feels both sprawling and intimate--it has the scope of a family saga, but is primarily told from a single character's perspective. Soli retains the gifts for vivid and evocative physical description she showed in The Lotus Eaters, and shows herself equally adept at creating complex psychological landscapes; many of the scenes between Claire and Minna feel fluid and dreamlike.

Soli's second novel is ambitious in a very different way from her first, and I appreciate that she's exploring other directions, and I think her writing is capable of sometimes elevating her material. Ultimately, I didn't find The Forgetting Tree as satisfying as The Lotus Eaters, but Tatjana Soli is a writer whose work I intend to continue following.(less)

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Sep 12, 2012 Shirley rated it 5 of 5 stars

A terribly sad event happens near the beginning and it overshadows the rest of the story. I shed tears. To lose a child is the saddest of events and the manner in which Claire and Forster lose young Josh is so awful and senseless. It is a natural tendency to be protective of our children but these circumstances made Claire over-protective to the point of the children feeling imprisoned and eventually drove her husband away. Then, alone, Claire is told she has cancer. At the insistence of her two...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Paula rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book for a Bookbrowse First Impressions. While I rated the book highly, I also offer a caution as there’s not much joy in its pages, despite its opening celebration, a quinceañera, which I had to look up to learn that it is a sweet 15 party. The quinceañera is for the daughter of Octavio Mejia, the loyal manager of a ranch owned by Forster and Claire Baumsarg. We also meet the lemon tree that served as the source from which the thousands of trees were grafted to sustain the Baumsarg...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Marjorie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I got this book through Goodreads. I read it but gave to my cousin for her to review. Here is her review:

The Forgetting Tree is a dark, gothic novel set in sunny California on a citrus farm. It is the emotional story of Claire, a mother who is dealing with the loss of her son, and diagnosis of breast cancer. Claire tries to protect and shield her adult daughters from having to experience the cruelty of her cancer and the burden of her cared. She hires a mysterious young woman, Minna, to be her c...more

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Sep 28, 2012 (Lonestarlibrarian) Keddy Ann Outlaw rated it 4 of 5 stars

I give this a reluctant 4 stars. Good and evil do battle in this novel, set on a doomed California citrus ranch. For the first third of the book I was bored with the plot, predictable as it was about Claire, a mother who never gets over the loss of her only son. So much of modern fiction seems to center around loss of a family member, and although we all have much to learn about death the older we get, and although I too have lost family members, I was not feeling enlightened by the author's plo...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Patty rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Forgetting Tree
by
Tatiana Soli

My"in a nutshell"summary...

A California citrus farming family suffers a huge personal loss. This book is their story...both before and after.

My thoughts after reading this book...

Wow...I love a long lovely lingering family saga and that is exactly what this is and then some! The Baumsarg family suffers an incredible loss and this book is what happens as they struggle to survive the effects of this horribly sad tragedy. The life of this family revolves around the...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

In this intensely spellbinding novel, Tatjana Soli delivers an incredibly complex story that – at its core – focuses on two women, one white, one black, who are seeking forgiveness and rejuvenation. It’s a true stunner.

The premise is telegraphed in an opening quote from Marilynne Robinson: “In destitution, even of feeling or purpose, a human being is more hauntingly human and vulnerable to kindness knowing there is a sense that things should be otherwise…”

Claire is a literary woman who marries...more In this intensely spellbinding novel, Tatjana Soli delivers an incredibly complex story that – at its core – focuses on two women, one white, one black, who are seeking forgiveness and rejuvenation. It’s a true stunner.

The premise is telegraphed in an opening quote from Marilynne Robinson: “In destitution, even of feeling or purpose, a human being is more hauntingly human and vulnerable to kindness knowing there is a sense that things should be otherwise…”

Claire is a literary woman who marries for love and finds herself enamored of her new husband’s farm – a place of connection and belonging and family. In the very first sentence, we learn that Claire will undergo “a small, domestic evil, as random as lightning, as devastating to those touched by it.” Very early on, we discover that that evil is a mother’s worst nightmare – the death of her only son near the orchard’s lemon tree.

The novel meanders into back story – how Claire ended up at the farm, the difficulty in keeping it – in rather prosaic passages. But hold on tight, because the novel soon begins to gather steam with the introduction of Minna, an exotic and devastatingly beautiful woman who ends up becoming Claire’s caregiver. Minna claims to be the great-granddaughter of the Dominica-born author Jean Rhys, who wrote Wide Sargasso Sea – a a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s famous Jane Eyre, focusing on the “crazy woman in the attic”, Antoinette (known as Rochester’s first wife, Berta Mason in Jane Eyre).

Wide Sargasso Sea’s many themes – disintegrating relationships, precarious mental states, empty promises, and unwavering belief – are all integrated into The Forgetting Tree. Claire and Mina gradually twin to a point where Claire “could no longer tell the difference between her white and Minna’s black.” To say much more would be to give spoilers, but I found the relationship between these two damaged women to be as engrossing as I’ve read this year.

Can one’s soul grow anew after a tragedy? Is it possible that a “forgetting tree” could provide solace? Or, as Minna’s mother tells her: “The tree is where you leave the bad memory behind so that it doesn’t poison your life.” Can a person realign with the natural world after unspeakable loss? This book – in turns, gothic, mysterious, poignant, and haunting – is not soon to be forgotten.
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Sep 06, 2012 Patty rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a novel of love for the land and loss of a child. I found the parts about citrus farming to be fascinating. The parts of the story at the beginning when it involved Claire and her marriage to Forster and their life as Claire adjusted to being a farmer's wife and then her falling in love with the farm were truly readable and I fell in the love with the farm too. The passages written after the loss of their son were heartbreaking. Ms. Soli knows how to set a mood with her words and she can...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio-books, relationship-fiction

I feel like this is a 3.5 star book, but Goodreads doesn't give that option.

This is one of those stories by the end isn't about what it was about in the beginning. At first it is the story of a mother, and her family, trying to survive the murder of their son. By the end it is about the mother surviving breast cancer, adjusting to a new reality in terms of managing a family farm, dealing with an insane/dangerous caretaker, and coming to terms finally with her son's death. But that finaly coming...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Uwe Hook rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is really more like two books- one about a family dealing with the loss of a child, the other examining the close but destructive relationship between an ill woman and her caregiver.

When a teenager dies in a crime gone awry, his mother, Claire, struggles to put her life back together. The family's citrus farm becomes the project into which Claire funnels her grief and energies. When she is diagnosed with cancer Claire reuses to leave her ranch for treatment. The rest of the family is reluct...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Laura (booksnob) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, literature

Claire is the matriarch of a citrus ranch in southern California. She is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants who fled Hungary during the second World War. Claire married into the German Baumsarg family, who owned the ranch for 3 generations, and bore three children with her husband Forster. The orchard becomes all encompassing for Claire as she takes it upon herself to make it succeed. Just as she is about to pay off all of their debt, something unforeseen happens to rock the foundation of thei...more Claire is the matriarch of a citrus ranch in southern California. She is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants who fled Hungary during the second World War. Claire married into the German Baumsarg family, who owned the ranch for 3 generations, and bore three children with her husband Forster. The orchard becomes all encompassing for Claire as she takes it upon herself to make it succeed. Just as she is about to pay off all of their debt, something unforeseen happens to rock the foundation of their lives. Their beloved son dies.

Claire is torn between her extreme grief and the struggle to keep her family and orchard intact. Her marriage fails and everyone escapes the ranch but Claire. Now as she fights the battle of her life against breast cancer, her family is trying to get her to sell.

In her illness, Claire refuses to the leave the ranch and hires a personal assistant named Minna. Minna is the great granddaughter of Jean Rhys (author of Wide Sargasso Sea) Claire and Minna are drawn to one another but are polar opposites, dark and light, young and old, healthy and sick. The majority of The Forgetting Tree focuses on the relationship of Claire and Minna. What you see is not necessarily what you understand and Soli capitalizes on this.

So much of The Forgetting Tree is immersed in the senses. Soli captures the sense of place with mesmerizing detail. The orchard fruit of oranges, lemons, and avocados is a enticing backdrop with food being the staple of our lives. I could literally taste and smell the oranges from Soli's description and wanted to bite into one. The descriptions of lemons made my mouth water.

The Forgetting Tree is a family saga that questions the meaning of home and finding one's place of belonging in the world. It is complex novel with vivid characters that Soli paints with dark colors, dripping with stymied emotion. Tragedy holds many characters back from truly living.

The Forgetting Tree would make a great book for people in a book club where it can be discussed and treasured for it's complexity. Pair it with Jane Eyre or Wide Sargasso Sea. While I was reading I thought of multiple women in my life who would enjoy this book and relate to the main character. Claire is a version of every woman.

Experience The Forgetting Tree, "a place where you leave your bad memories behind so they don't poison your life". (pg 296) "Listen to my words. My words are all you will have someday."

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Mar 29, 2013 Champaign Public Library rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: staff-recommends

I was drawn to this book by (I admit it) the beautiful cover featuring the Southern California citrus groves. The main character, Claire Nagy, marries the son of prominent California citrus ranchers and develops, as time passes, a fierce love of the land, her husband, and her three children. When tragedy strikes and a serious illness threatens her life and her most important relationships, she hires a mysterious Caribbean-born woman to care for her. The young woman, a descendant of novelist, Jea...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Elizabeth La Lettrice rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: life-journey-stories, stories-about-women

Since it appears that I am the first to review this book, I feel a heavy burden on my shoulders! It’s a good thing I have nothing but positive to say!:)

First, I’d like to describe the book for you in Tatjana Soli’s words (based off of a Q&A in a GR’s forum) since there is no blurb on the GR book page yet:

” It's a very different book than The Lotus Eaters, but many of the same themes run through it.

It's about a woman who is running a large citrus farm in contemporary Southern California. I ha...more Since it appears that I am the first to review this book, I feel a heavy burden on my shoulders! It’s a good thing I have nothing but positive to say!:)

First, I’d like to describe the book for you in Tatjana Soli’s words (based off of a Q&A in a GR’s forum) since there is no blurb on the GR book page yet:

” It's a very different book than The Lotus Eaters, but many of the same themes run through it.

It's about a woman who is running a large citrus farm in contemporary Southern California. I have some photos and a few teaser lines from the book here on my website [now an excerpt]:

http://www.tatjanasoli.com/Future_Pro...
...

I like to joke that it's about two dangerous women, oranges, and a little voudou thrown in. Seriously the new book deals with power/powerlessness, racism, dislocation — many of the same issues that were in Lotus Eaters.”

For me, Soli’s debut book, The Lotus Eaters, was an incredible eyeopener. I felt such a strong emotional connection to the novel and its inhabitants. I don’t remember the last time a book made me feel that way before. Rather than copying and pasting my entire review, I suggest you take a glance here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Nevertheless, my devotion to The Lotus Eaters had me eager to pick up anything else Soli could gift us (because her writing truly is a gift.)

The Forgetting Tree is a novel about tragedy in all its forms. The book is divided into four parts, each of which is a novel is its own right. Going into this novel with no idea what it was about, I read through Part 1 and completed it thinking, “THIS. THIS is the tragedy that will define the rest of the book.” But throughout the book, we begin to understand how tragedy affects those it touches in a variety of ways. There are those who dwell on it, those who ignore it, and those who hide it. It is how one learns to LIVE with tragedy that defines how we are able to cope and survive as a person. As I read, I understood more and more how tragedy can define a person and how... well how it cannot.

What I love most about Soli’s writing is her ability to create characters. Every character in a Soli novel (if having read her only two books allow me to generalize :) ) is incredibly complex. She really knows how to create a beautiful in-depth look into the human soul. Both books had a strong female lead character, narrated in the third person, through which the reader connects SO strongly that, personally, I felt like I was in her shoes. I understand her thoughts, felt her pain, understood her mistakes, her faults, and journeyed through her story as if it was my own. This is a story about life and the cards it deals you – and how you decide to play them.

I don’t want to spoil anything about the book so I hope you forgive my obvious omission regarding the story’s plotline. Hopefully, I’ve made it clear how much this novel (actually - both of her works) are worth your time. However, I’m happy to discuss the novel once everyone else gets a chance to read it! (less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Wanda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-books

When Claire Nagy marries Forster Baumsarg, she turns away from her education and consents to the life of a rancher. The life of a rancher absorbs her and she absorbs it. She devotes her life to preserving the ranch. The death of her son Joshua by kidnappers, her alienation from her two daughters, and the end of her marriage does not interfere with her passion for the ranch. In fact, it is this love that takes her away from the ranch. When struck by cancer, her family hires a caregiver to stay wi...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Cat rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, tlc-book-tours

The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli isn't my normal reading fare - tragedy, death of a child, cancer - I mean, UGH, how joyless. These subjects have the makings of a book I usually wouldn't even consider reading. But something made me take a second look. Perhaps it was the setting - a California citrus farm - coupled with the fact that I'd meant to read Soli's other novel - The Lotus Eaters - for quite a while. Whatever the case, I'm happy I had the opportunity to read this strange, melancholy t...more The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli isn't my normal reading fare - tragedy, death of a child, cancer - I mean, UGH, how joyless. These subjects have the makings of a book I usually wouldn't even consider reading. But something made me take a second look. Perhaps it was the setting - a California citrus farm - coupled with the fact that I'd meant to read Soli's other novel - The Lotus Eaters - for quite a while. Whatever the case, I'm happy I had the opportunity to read this strange, melancholy tale.

The story opens with the events surrounding the death of Claire's eleven-year-old son, juxtaposed against her birthday party only the day before, during which everything in her family's life seemed to be falling into place, finally. Such contentment never lasting long, the family is shattered after Josh's senseless killing, and Claire's marriage ultimately cannot weather the grief, though they'll always remain connected by the pain they shared:

How to explain that after twenty or more years, a marriage, if it had ever been real, could no longer by sundered by a piece of paper. In two decades--the same time it took to raise a human being--a marriage became its own entity. Life intervened, yes, a decision was made that life together was too painful, but the marriage itself lived on, a kind of radiological half-life.

We rejoin the family many years later, just as Claire is diagnosed with breast cancer, and her family has moved on, moved away, only Claire remains doggedly attached to the citrus farm. Neither of her daughters is willing to move back to the ranch to care for Claire, nor is Claire willing to leave the ranch. And so a caretaker must be hired. Enter: Minna, a gorgeous, mysterious force from the Caribbean, a spinner of fanciful tales that all seem willfully to believe against their better judgment. After all the family had been through, Claire preferred the comfort of a stranger:

It was impossible to be in [her family's] presence--the undertow of the past was too strong, a constant replaying of some infatuation, some slight. Only with strangers, new acquaintances, could one gage who one was in the present, try on whom one might become.

Minna proves to be both lovable and despicable, showing great warmth and insight mixed with manipulative spitefulness. Only later do we get Minna's backstory, which, though certainly horrific, only partially explains her less noble behaviors and her attachment to the mystery man on other end of her late-night phone calls.

The Forgetting Tree is an imaginative and unique take on the reconstructing of ourselves that must occur after tragedy, belated or not. Claire's blind acceptance of Minna's obvious nonsense could become irritating at times, but irritating the way a parent's insistence on giving his or her child a 173rd chance is irritating. But both Claire and Minna manage to rebuild themselves inside-out as they only could in the presence of an outsider, a compassionate stranger.

*I read this book courtesy of TLC Book Tours and St. Martin's Press.(less)

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Mar 18, 2013 Val Wilkerson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-books-read

Absolutely a 5 star read for me. Tatjana Soli also wrote "The Lotus
Eaters" which I also gave 5 star. The main character, Claire, lived
on a ranch in southern california, a ranch of orange trees, lemon trees.
She & her husband had 3 children, 2 girls and a boy. Not to give spoilers
its about the hardest times a woman can face, the loss of a child, cancer,
children moving away, a divorce. Its incredible well written. Its the era
when other ranches were selling out for big bucks to the developers.
Th...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Jan Kellis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookworm-book, audio-version, shelf-worthy-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 04, 2013 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars

The plot of this book was great. I love books about predatory people; predatory caregivers are especially fascinating. The problem was that some of the characters were rather shaky in their development and motivations. For instance, if Claire cares so deeply about the ranch, a point the author bludgeons us with during the first third of the book, why does she easily allow Minna to gradually destroy it? Also, the book was incredibly slow and lingering in the beginning where almost nothing but set...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Catherine Woodman rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book largely takes place on a ranch in Central California, a place that reminded me very much of Fresno. Claire is a woman who is slow to warm up that the lifestyle of solitary living. She is more suited to city living and academic pursuits, but she falls in love with Forester, a man who inherits a fruit tree ranch from his parents. His mother expresses a great deal of skepticism about Clare. She judges her by the way she looks, not her potential--but she changes her tune soon enough. Fores...more This book largely takes place on a ranch in Central California, a place that reminded me very much of Fresno. Claire is a woman who is slow to warm up that the lifestyle of solitary living. She is more suited to city living and academic pursuits, but she falls in love with Forester, a man who inherits a fruit tree ranch from his parents. His mother expresses a great deal of skepticism about Clare. She judges her by the way she looks, not her potential--but she changes her tune soon enough. Forester is the one who could give up on the land. Clare becomes determined to die on it.

Which almost comes true. Clare and Forester split up--she is so intensely tied to the land, and he realizes that they need to sell it, and their relationship can't survive the difference of opinion. Then, when Clare is diagnosed with breast cancer, she still can't compromise. She loses her marriage, her relationship with her daughters, and she almost loses herself. It is a shyster, a woman who wants something that she is not revealing and who is telling lots of lies to hide that fact to teach her that she really has to let go of it after all. It is a cautionary tale. Never value things and places over people.

It reminded me of when I was struggling with a decision about changing schools for my lasty son. All of my kids had gone to this small wonderful school, but then it changed--all the people who mattered to us left the school, and my son was miserable, but we still weren't sure about what to do. I had an eye opening conversation with a professional acquaintance and flew home to have a family meeting about ending our relationship with the school, after more than a decade. I was heartbroken about it, but my kids didn't understand it at all. One of them said, "Mom, the school is just a building. It is the people who matter, and the very best person there left. So there is nothing left there for us." Just a building. They were so right. I had my priorities completely mixed up. I could have ended up just like Claire if I hadn't been set straight. Don't let that happen to you.
(less)

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Nov 27, 2012 Karen rated it 2 of 5 stars

While some passages were so beautifully, truthfully written I had to read them twice, I found the book very solemn and off-putting. I'm not against a depressing story, but the tone of this was just gray, and it didn't keep drawing me in. Does that make any sense? The story itself had me wondering about whether some of the characters would really respond/behave the way they were written, so at times it wasn't believeable, and I couldn't connect. I do buy into the idea that a person could want som...more

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