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The Orchardist

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 7,377 ratings · 1,665 reviews

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
"The Orchardist is like one of its characters: 'an egg encased in iron'-an elemental story filled with the perfection of the natural world. Nearly everybody in the book compels your a...more 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
"The Orchardist is like one of its characters: 'an egg encased in iron'-an elemental story filled with the perfection of the natural world. Nearly everybody in the book compels your admiration, either for their courage or for the heavy work they do, all the time and without complaint, even when wicked men are hunting them. Transfixing. I love this book straight through."-Salvatore Scibona, author of National Book Award Finalist The End

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.(less)

Hardcover, 426 pages

Published August 21st 2012 by Harper

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Mar 06, 2013 Will Byrnes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-of-the-year-2012, all-time-favorites-fiction

UPDATED - 3/7/13 - see link at bottom

Let’s state it up front. This is a GREAT book. Not a pretty good book with some nice qualities, but a powerful, beautiful, thoughtful and incredibly moving work of art that will be read for generations. The Orchardist is even more incredible for being a first novel, the best first I have read since Edgar Sawtelle. Yes, that good.

Talmadge had lived forty years in the orchard without any exceptional event happening to him, barring inclement weather or some hort

...more

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Jun 01, 2013 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin marks the debut of a talented new American writer. But midway through the novel I paused and asked myself, why am I reading this? Is it believable?

Coplin’s spare, post-modern prose was controlled and the voice unique. The setting—the dry eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains at the turn of the 20th Century—was also unique and evocatively rendered. The characters possessed a timeless, mythic quality as if carved from stone, and the story itself, as one book blur...more The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin marks the debut of a talented new American writer. But midway through the novel I paused and asked myself, why am I reading this? Is it believable?

Coplin’s spare, post-modern prose was controlled and the voice unique. The setting—the dry eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains at the turn of the 20th Century—was also unique and evocatively rendered. The characters possessed a timeless, mythic quality as if carved from stone, and the story itself, as one book blurb described it, felt as if it were the subject of an old folksong. But for me the book seemed somehow flawed.

Coplin invents a time and place shaped more by her own imagination, by her own emotions toward the curious world she conjures, than by the historical record. She failed to persuade me that her invention was anything more than a romantic hallucination.

One can argue that all history is a re-imagining, a re-visioning of the past. But history relies on testimony—new facts, or overlooked facts, but always something factual from the record. Fiction needs no facts, and may even be harmed by them. But if a writer places a story within the historical context, can the temporal facts, any more than the laws of physics, be disregarded? When a writer imagines a story in turn-of-the-century Washington that behaves like a gothic romance in the vein of Wuthering Heights, as Amanda Coplin does, am I, the reader, to accept this as a poetic truth? (Mind, being compared to Bronte ain't bad, but let's face it, her book, which was such an original hallmark of the Romantic movement, would be just another bodice ripper today.)

In a Seattle Times interview, Coplin acknowledges that she wholly invented the heinous crime that launches her story. Her main character, Talmadge, the orchardist, seems ageless and monolithic in his solitude, silence and fixed compassion—archetypal perhaps, yet hardly historically authentic. Coplin’s other characters, the feral sisters Jane and Della for example, seem no more real except in the raw emotions that propel them. And the villain, described in the New York Times as “an evildoer of spaghetti-western proportions,” suffers from a similar lack of verisimilitude.

Even the land Coplin so evocatively conjures—the canyon orchards and pine forests—assumes a virtual reality. Like the heath in Hardy’s novels or Bronte’s moors, the terrain becomes a stage set, despite the inclusion of real place names.

As I read on I kept asking myself, what am I to glean from this well-written novel? Am I to revise my historical perspective of the western frontier? Coplin’s post-modern style might imply that. Am I to view her characters as American archetypes? Their unchanging, stone-like nature might imply that as well, and the orchard setting seems primed for a parable or allegory. But, if so, about what?

As you can see, I had trouble putting my finger on the problem I had with a book I nonetheless enjoyed reading. So I compared it to other books.

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian came to mind. Written in an equally spare, modern style, it is equally evocative of the western terrain, with equally fixed, archetypal characters. And if ever there was a book conjured from an author’s imagination, Blood Meridian is it. But the truth coursing through Blood Meridian comes from a historical fact—the existence of the scalp-hunting Glanton gang—and from the thematic postulate supported by its epigraph (from a real newspaper article): that killing is the natural state of man. Is Coplin arguing that mute nurturing is our natural state? Without some historical basis, I don’t buy her argument. The story rings false, fanciful, and the inherent tragedy seems contrived—the stuff of gothic romance.

Coplin mentions the influence of the great Australian writer Patrick White, in particular his novel Voss. I wish she had studied White’s even better novel, The Tree of Man. White conveys the same physical and emotional isolation she does, but he avoids imagined evil and its sensational consequences; his book remains grounded in the lyrical truth of historical experience and expands because of it.

Marcel Proust believed a single book does not allow us to know an author. Only through multiple books can we distinguish what is book-specific from what is distinctive about the author. Curiously, McCarthy’s first novel, The Orchard Keeper, suffers from the same post-modern gothic excess as The Orchardist. I look forward to Amanda Coplin's next book in order to see what is truly distinctive about her vision. I believe she is capable of work as original as McCarthy's and as luminous as White’s.(less)

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May 02, 2013 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Michael by: Julie christine

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, washington, farming, child-abuse, horses, coming-of-age

I loved the balance between reflection and emotional engagement in this tale. The sense of connection between working the land and creation of a bridge to save the human heart. It makes me hold a fancy word on my tongue—‘luminous’. It appears apt for how the universal shines through the particular in the book’s clear prose, how the natural world is cast in a clear light, banishing the dark shadows of life to a compost of the soil.

This is the story of Talmadge, an unmarried orchardist in the Went...more

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Sep 18, 2012 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, america, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, four-star-fiction

Amanda Coplin sets THE ORCHARDIST in central Washington, the region in which she spent her youth. Her knowledge of its history, geography, architecture, and especially its people, draws us into the beauty and ugliness of life in the Wenatchee area around the turn of the 20th century.

William Talmadge is a man of quiet tenacity. He has lived alone for forty years, nurturing his fruit trees and living by the simple rhythm of the seasons. His orchards are his anchor, and he needs little else but th...more Amanda Coplin sets THE ORCHARDIST in central Washington, the region in which she spent her youth. Her knowledge of its history, geography, architecture, and especially its people, draws us into the beauty and ugliness of life in the Wenatchee area around the turn of the 20th century.

William Talmadge is a man of quiet tenacity. He has lived alone for forty years, nurturing his fruit trees and living by the simple rhythm of the seasons. His orchards are his anchor, and he needs little else but the companionship of Caroline Middey, the midwife and herbalist who lives down the road.

Talmadge is well on his way to old age when he discovers two pregnant girls living on his property. Sisters Della and Jane were orphaned and abused, and are rightfully mistrustful of men. They behave like feral animals, circling and watching, darting in to devour the food Talmadge leaves for them before disappearing again. Eventually he earns a measure of their trust, and they allow him to care for them after a fashion. But still they are not safe. The man from whom they escaped is on the hunt, and tragedy looms.

Through his relationship with the girls and their offspring, Talmadge learns that sometimes all the love and self-sacrifice in the world is not enough to repair a damaged spirit. Della is bent on self-destruction and revenge, and Talmadge pays a price for his deep and persistent concern for her well-being.

Coplin's writing is the polar opposite of purple prose, restrained to a degree that sometimes left me wishing for richer descriptions and greater emotional depth. Higher highs and lower lows would let us know the characters more intimately and feel more connected to their experiences. Stylistic choices notwithstanding, Coplin's prose displays a careful polish.

When I started this novel, it felt like I was going to spend forever getting through it. About 75 pages in, I finally connected with story and style, and read long into the night. Eight years in the making, THE ORCHARDIST will garner much-deserved acclaim for new novelist Amanda Coplin.

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Apr 06, 2013 Tania rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite-books, best

We do not belong to ourselves alone

This is a beautiful, evocative novel. The writing is slow and eloquent. The orchardist is in many ways reminiscent of three of my best-loved books -
Blessings, The Poisonwood Bible and The Snow Child. In all of these stories there's a marked focus on the land. So much so that the landscape almost becomes one of the characters.

The author is also more concerned with the emotions behind an action or choice, than the action or choice itself. Her descriptions of fee...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-of-2012, historical-fiction, read-2012, usa-historical

It is a rare read that cuts through the surface noise of daily life and becomes the one sound you can hear clearly, like a church bell on a still winter morning. It commands your full attention and you willingly shut out the world and surrender to the power of its images, characters and the force of its story. Amanda Coplin’s debut novel, The Orchardist, is one such book.

Set in the early years of the 20th century in the golden valleys and granite hills of Chelan county in north-central Washingt...more It is a rare read that cuts through the surface noise of daily life and becomes the one sound you can hear clearly, like a church bell on a still winter morning. It commands your full attention and you willingly shut out the world and surrender to the power of its images, characters and the force of its story. Amanda Coplin’s debut novel, The Orchardist, is one such book.

Set in the early years of the 20th century in the golden valleys and granite hills of Chelan county in north-central Washington state, The Orchardist is a fierce and poetic story of the Northwest frontier.

William Talmadge, the orchardist, has led a secluded, solitary life since he was a young man. Orphaned in early adolescence, he and his younger sister Elsbeth, worked on their own to build and maintain acres of apple and apricot orchards in the Wenatchee Valley. When she turns sixteen, Elsbeth vanishes. Whether she is taken or disappears of her own volition is a question that will haunt Talmadge as the century turns and he enters the later years of his life.

Talmadge provides refuge to two young women who appear in his orchard one day, filthy, starving and pregnant. By inviting them into his home, he opens the door to great tragedy and profound love. Talmadge is a nurturer – it is an undeniable facet of his character that he seeks to repair what has been damaged by neglect or abuse, whether it is sapling or a human heart.

But, as Talmadge learns, even the most tender care, the strongest scion of love and compassion, cannot heal all wounds.

Coplin’s prose is exhilarating. She composes with quiet confidence, her narrative rich in period detail. And although she describes ugly circumstances– the suffering of women trapped in desperate conditions, a time when deprivation and disease swept through communities with shocking regularity – she writes with such empathy and beauty that the heart is reminded to hope. And the heart is rewarded. And it is shattered.

Coplin’s writing is uniquely and brilliantly her own, but a few favorite authors came to my mind while reading The Orchardist: Toni Morrison, for her evocative and dark period pieces and haunted women; Ivan Doig for the warmth of his characters and his passion for the West; Kent Haruf for his restraint and gentleness; Tim Winton for his truth-telling about the complicated nature of family.

I always hold my breath when encountering a familiar setting or terrain in a book: will the author have a feel for the place, its light and colors, its scents and temperatures? Will she follow the undulations of its land and the shapes in its cities? Coplin, a native of the Wenatchee Valley, not only conveys the beauty of the sage-steppe of the Cascade mountain foothills, the gold of its valleys, the shimmering glory of its aspen forests and glacial lakes, she erases the damage wrought by the past one hundred years of development. You are taken to a time when the air and water were so pure, the land so unscathed, that you cry in homesickness for a place you never really knew. The names from my home, Wenatchee, Cashmere, Ellensburg, Methow, Walla Walla, Chelan, Okanogan, Stehekin, Dungeness, are renewed and flow through this novel like poetry.

This is one of those novels I want to carry around to show everyone, to bring up in every conversation even tangentially related to reading or the Northwest. I cried when I turned its final page. I wept for the characters, for the past, for the gift of reading sentences so beautifully and thoughtfully constructed. I reckon this will be my top read of 2012. Brava, Amanda. Thank you.

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Dec 01, 2012 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, favorites

I have been thinking a lot about this book since I finished it, waiting to write about it. It is quite extraordinary. The beginning in particular for me was totally mesmerizing. I could have stayed forever suspended in time in the orchard, sleeping on my side in the long grass in the sun among the apple and apricot trees. I don't think I've read in a long time a writer who captures, and holds, time like this. The whole book is drenched in it, but particularly the beginning of the book, when we a...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, historical-fiction

The Orchardist is a story featuring a main protagonist, an orchardist, a worker of a wonderful apricot orchard. This is a tale of the country of a modest man who lives by modest standards he happens to come upon two desperate souls, young women and he takes them very slowly under his wing for raising. A new birth an offspring soon learns of the wonders of the orchard and grows to love it, to want to live there. One of the women wants more as time passes she wants to be amongst the men that work...more The Orchardist is a story featuring a main protagonist, an orchardist, a worker of a wonderful apricot orchard. This is a tale of the country of a modest man who lives by modest standards he happens to come upon two desperate souls, young women and he takes them very slowly under his wing for raising. A new birth an offspring soon learns of the wonders of the orchard and grows to love it, to want to live there. One of the women wants more as time passes she wants to be amongst the men that work in the wild she wants to run with the men on horses hunting and sitting by campfire drinking. This can be a troublesome environment for woman in a male dominated pasture. Troubles arise for this soul and the main protagonist finds himself in a great task in trying to understand and help her plight.
He himself has had his sorrow and is still dealing with loss. His loss is of a very dear sister to him and many times talks of her wandering in the fields or of her presence in a ghostly way. This story is strung together with some fine writing, descriptions and feelings for loss and love of nature and life.
There were places where I felt the story could have been slightly shortened as I felt it dragged and lost momentum. This heartfelt journey contained does make this story one to remember and talk of.
With a Memorable setting, characters and some great paragraphs this is one great effort for a debut.

“There were long periods where he did not think of Elizabeth at all. Time had intervened, after all, so that grief had not killed him. At times he could imagine her fate matter-of-factly, he could distance himself from it: he had a sister who had disappeared into the woods, and no one knew what had become of her. It had all happened so long ago; he had continued with his life, accepted her absence. This is what he told himself; and it was partly true. But other times even his flesh was sensitive to air, and what could have befallen her- and what she had suffered-tortured him. The litany of possibilities always hung about him, and during periods of weakness he turned to it, scrolled through it; amended some possibilities, added others.”

“To her (Della) the orchard was an empty scene that did not fill until the horses entered it. And now she wanted to be a horsewoman. It was the only thing she wanted.”

“But most of the men liked her; they liked, were amused by, her fierceness and her earnestness about horses. They too at different times and in different situations would witness her strange vulnerability and wanted to protect her.”

“Each morning she was fortified by hope: the future loomed.”

“Clee’s hands were stained red from the butchering. Blood smudged on his cuffs. He pulled on the pipe a few times and then there was the odour of tobacco smoke missing with the odour of fires and venison. The sky overhead was darkening, and when Talmadge pulled his face away from the fire-the smoke was in his eyes-the outer air was cold. Evening had set in. the fires sent their flames high. The man talked and laughed, and behind and beyond them was the sound of the horses, which never died. The sound was loud and soft at the same time, like the sound upon which other sound was built. You didn’t hear the horses until you listened to them; and then they were very lou. Already Talmadge was becoming used to them. How that presence equated with silence until it was gone, and then you understood what silence really was.”

“His own image pleased him (Talmadge), though he knew he was considered ugly, even without the smallpox scars.”

Also @ http://more2read.com/review/the-orchardist-by-amanda-coplin/(less)

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Feb 21, 2013 Lizzy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a slow, luxurious read for the first 200 pages. I was steeped in the landscape, the time period, the characters and enough of a plot to keep me turning the pages. The writing was deceptively simple at times, almost staccato in rhythm, yet highly evocative and well-matched to the rural setting of the book. At other times I was captivated by Coplin's beautiful prose and her instinct to reveal just enough about her characters but never too much inner detail, as if seen through a veil. Howe...more

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May 09, 2013 Emilia rated it 5 of 5 stars

I know I've fallen in love with a book when the lush language is delicate in its delivery yet packs a punch. This is the case in Amanda Coplin's debut novel, The Orchardist. Novice and veteran writers alike should be envious of her prose. I was immediately drawn into the story of William Talmadge, an old bachelor who takes in the feral and pregnant teenage sisters, Jane and Della. The sad and horrific living situation they escape is so heartbreaking and may bring the reader to tears but my mind...more I know I've fallen in love with a book when the lush language is delicate in its delivery yet packs a punch. This is the case in Amanda Coplin's debut novel, The Orchardist. Novice and veteran writers alike should be envious of her prose. I was immediately drawn into the story of William Talmadge, an old bachelor who takes in the feral and pregnant teenage sisters, Jane and Della. The sad and horrific living situation they escape is so heartbreaking and may bring the reader to tears but my mind always went back to wondering what Talmadge was thinking. I anticipated his every move so in this sense, there was no time to weep. Coplin's characterization of this man was so clear, familiar, and complete. I imagined the late, great actor Richard Farnesworth as Talmadge (better known as Matthew Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables), stoic, strong and yearning to protect and care for a family.

The story takes place in breathtaking rural Washington state during the early twentieth century. I have only been to this area of the country once but my limited time there still helped me visualize the sprawling land dotted with apple orchards and the majestic Cascade Mountains in the distance. I am partial to the Pacific Northwest region in general so needless to say, the setting alone already had my attention.

One interesting theme in this book is how lonely people can come together and make unlikely but meaningful bonds. I was thankful for Caroline Middey, the elderly spinster who is Talmadge's lifelong friend. Even the strongest people need love and support and she provides this unconditionally to Talmadge and the girls, especially Jane's daughter, Angelene. It gives me hope that maybe the people who appear the loneliest may have their own behind-the-scenes support network, even if it's just one or two individuals.

The book spans a number of years so that we experience Angelene growing up with Talmadge. There are many times of hardship and trial but the fierce loyalty between these two is never broken. After I finished the last sentences and closed the book, I kept thinking of Angelene and hoped she would be fine. I know I've fallen in love with a book when I care this much about the characters.(less)

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Nov 25, 2012 Judi/Judith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: excellent-fictionalized-history, favorites

Just one more chapter, I would promise myself and then I would read two, three or four, making myself late for some other activity or sleep. I couldn't stop reading this emotionally intense, gripping tale of William Talmadge who loved and tended his orchards with devotion in early 1900s rural Oregon. One day, two ferrel young and pregnant girls appeared to be hiding on his vast property and that is the day his life changed forever. Without hesitation or question he took on the role of their prot...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Dem, Sue, Kimberly, Pragya and any other friend considering reading this

Recommended to Judy by: Jeanette

Shelves: fiction, washington, 2012-reads, usa

The Orchardist tells the story of lonely Talmadge, the orchardist, a man deep-seeded in grief from the loss of his beloved sister who mysteriously disappeared. Talmadge's life is turned upside down when two runaway sisters begin stealing apples and food from him. Although I never fully got accustomed to the writing style, the story was compelling and I felt the author portrayed atmosphere exceptionally well in spite of the aloofness of the storytelling.

Here is an example of the writing chosen no...more The Orchardist tells the story of lonely Talmadge, the orchardist, a man deep-seeded in grief from the loss of his beloved sister who mysteriously disappeared. Talmadge's life is turned upside down when two runaway sisters begin stealing apples and food from him. Although I never fully got accustomed to the writing style, the story was compelling and I felt the author portrayed atmosphere exceptionally well in spite of the aloofness of the storytelling.

Here is an example of the writing chosen not so much for what it conveys of the story but so you can see the texture and feel it.

You-all lost? he called. They looked away at the trees. The shorter one - younger one, he decided - held her mouth open and panted slightly. Their faces were filthy. Even from where he stood, he saw their arms discolored from dirt.

As you can see, there are no quotation marks or anything to denote that someone is speaking. Its all written like two people are sitting on a porch and one of them is telling the other about a conversation he had while in town. This is why I remarked that I never quite got used to the writing. Also, the writing style puts a lot of distance between the writer and reader, but somehow it fits this book well. I think Amanda Coplin writes exceptionally well for a first time author and commend her on not following the style of so many new writers who over-metaphorize and overly describe every sensation in their books. Coplin's writing feels natural and I like that.

I think this book would make a good book club selection or buddy read because there is so much that could be discussed in relation to why things were done the way they were, how much the early environment of a child effects decisions and points their ultimate direction and so much more. There are a lot of points I would love to discuss but this review would be full of spoilers. The book contains interesting contrasts, all the characters are slightly mysterious in that you never feel like you know them completely. To some degree this annoyed, but more so it left an aura of mystery that left the characters unpredictable and that kept me reading. The only mystery I felt truly should not have been left hanging was (view spoiler)

Hence, The Orchardist receives a solid 3.5 stars from me and a hearty recommendation to my book club friends.(less)

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Aug 18, 2012 Kat rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2012-read, arc-review-complete, updated

From the very first page of The Orchardist I knew that I would love this book. The detailed, flowing description of Talmadge sets the scene and writing that continues throughout the story.

Set in the orchard that Talmadge came to live in as a child with his widowed mother and younger sister, The Orchardist is a contraction of itself - dark yet heartening, lyrical yet stark, complicated yet straightforward. Amanda Coplin contructs a story that is simple in plot but epic in execution.

Talmadge is ge...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Holly Weiss rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Holly by: Diane Scholl and Susan NI

Shelves: group-read, 2012-release, american-historical-fiction, historical-fiction

Brava, Amanda Coplin, on your debut novel, set in early twentieth century Washington. Ms. Coplin masterfully draws us into the world of William Talmadge, who finds safety and peace in his solitary existence. He tends his orchards with love and has little contact with the outside world until two pregnant women show up. Talmadge is a simple, honorable man. He takes them in and thus his life changes drastically. Shelter and the finding /losing of it seem to be the overriding themes in the book. Lif...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Kris Kachirisky added it

I grew up in a community snugged tightly against the base of the mighty San Gabriel mountains in Southern California. I loved summer. I commandeered a side yard that had two plum trees and an apricot. I would rake the leaves left behind by "winter", weed, and monitor the ripeness of the fruit. I took a bowl outside as my sink, rigged the hose into a faucet overhanging the bowl, and placed beside it a bar of old-school soap that smelled clean in an unintentional way. I would sit outside all day e...more I grew up in a community snugged tightly against the base of the mighty San Gabriel mountains in Southern California. I loved summer. I commandeered a side yard that had two plum trees and an apricot. I would rake the leaves left behind by "winter", weed, and monitor the ripeness of the fruit. I took a bowl outside as my sink, rigged the hose into a faucet overhanging the bowl, and placed beside it a bar of old-school soap that smelled clean in an unintentional way. I would sit outside all day everyday, reading and pretending I was homesteading. As my white, white skin glazed brown from sun, dirt, hose water, and dirt again, I ate more plums and apricots than good sense would dictate. Those were lovely times and this was a lovely book that I understood with the simple, dirt loving, fruit tree tending heart that those times produced in me.

The Orchardist takes place in rural Washington, not far from my new(ish) home state of Oregon and I loved the ability to visualize the setting of the story based on my first hand knowledge of the terrain. For the duration of this story, it was so enjoyable to live on an orchard, in a simple home by a creek, enjoying the rosey sapphire sunsets that are seen through the eyes of the characters. The best way to describe the protagonist, Talmadge, is simply by saying "he was a good man" --a simple phrase that is rightly freighted with all the marks of a man of high character couched in humble execution. Accordingly, Caroline Middey is best described as "a good woman" and it was such a delight to live with these simple, humble characters with high standards and stubborn principles. Oh that more of us had such character today.

I found Talmadge, Caroline, Jane, Della, and Angeline to be richly drawn and relatable. As a modern girl who, often to her detriment, never fails to speak her mind, I found myself silently urging the characters to open up to each other, to speak what they kept silent and to rely on each other more openly as they struggled through the challenging turns wrought by this life upon their paths. Yet as I settled into the story, I developed an appreciation for their restraint and dignity and was left in awe of the way in which each of the characters stretched out of their comfort zones, quietly but with determination and devotion, to save one another. Like the mantra of today's Marines--they would leave no man, or woman, behind.

A small aside--I was an emphatic fan of the HBO series "Deadwood". If you've seen any episodes at all, you will likely remember the portrayal of Calamity Jane: a woman who struggled mightily with the weight of her world and the battle with her own self, fighting to find a way to exist in a place where men and women lived at opposite ends of the spectrum. For me, the characters of Della and Calamity Jane were very similar and I was so fond of them both. I can only hope that in the world of imaginary characters, there is an imaginary heaven that allowed the two to meet and find peace in each other's similar company.

This is a beautiful, quiet, gorgeously, yet unaffectedly written novel. It reminds us that the concept of a non-traditional family is not the exclusive property of modern times, but that people have been pulling together to build family and do right by one another for a very long time. The characters were so real to me that I was brought to tears, momentarily having felt that I lost these individuals from my own life. I was sorry to leave this book but know that really, it will be a long time before it leaves me.(less)

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Jul 06, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 5 of 5 stars

In this understated and emotionally raw novel of a family born as much from choice as from blood, debut novelist Amanda Coplin explores themes of love, loyalty, courage, compassion, revenge, and honor, as well as the lifelong, traumatic impact of both childhood abuse and loss.

The novel opens with orchardist William Talmadge, a tall, broad-shouldered and solitary man who is composed of the most steadfast moral fiber and potent vulnerability of almost any protagonist that I can recall in recent (n...more In this understated and emotionally raw novel of a family born as much from choice as from blood, debut novelist Amanda Coplin explores themes of love, loyalty, courage, compassion, revenge, and honor, as well as the lifelong, traumatic impact of both childhood abuse and loss.

The novel opens with orchardist William Talmadge, a tall, broad-shouldered and solitary man who is composed of the most steadfast moral fiber and potent vulnerability of almost any protagonist that I can recall in recent (new/contemporary) literature. After his father died in the silver mines of the Oregon Territory when Talmadge was nine, he came to this fertile valley at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains (Washington State) in 1857 with his mother and sister. Within the next eight years, he suffered from smallpox, his mother died of illness, and his sister later disappeared in the forest, never to return. This is Talmadge's story, and the saga of his chosen family, borne from the blood of loss and abuse.

Two young pregnant teenagers, Della and Jane, enter Talmadge’s life in his middle-aged years. They steal fruit from him at market, where he sells the apricots, apples, and plums from his sweeping acreage of crops. A bit of a touch and go, cat and mouse game ensues, as they follow him home, hide, and emerge when they are hungry, only to scamper and scatter away again, staying close to the edges of his property. Talmadge gradually gains, if not Della and Jane’s trust (they have a harrowing history of ritual abuse), then a tentative acceptance, and they become inhabitants of the orchard, living alongside Talmadge. He becomes their loyal benefactor.

If I give any more of the plot progression, it will proceed into spoiler territory. The story bears its fruit gradually, almost meditatively, during the first two sections (135 or so pages). There are eight sections in all, but some are long and pensive, and some short, at times just a few pages. The middle sections compress the years into thumbnail sketches without losing its stirring effect on the reader. The story is told in a quiet and nearly oblique manner, yet without being detached. The overall effect is powerful, and it rumbles fiercely, and menacingly, at intervals, without open sentimentality. The characters evolve delicately, with contemplative subtlety.

“Through glances she had caught various features—his nose, the set of his shoulders, the striking color of his eyes. But he had one of those complicated faces that one had to consider at length to understand how emotion lay on it, to understand it at all. It was like a landscape: that wide and complicated, many-layered expanse.”

The land is essential to the story—the planting of seeds, the cultivation, and the harvest. The orchard is Talmadge’s lifeblood, and a ripe motif for the burgeoning love he has for the family that has germinated from the edges of his vast plantation. Nature and nurture merge, and the repository of grief yokes to the deep basin of humanity and from there, the kernels of love grow and reproduce.

At times, as I reflect on the ending, I am troubled by the author’s choices, but so goes the cycle of life in its order and perplexity.(less)

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Aug 27, 2012 Cindy Knoke rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a beautifully written book, an incandesant lamentation and exultation of the loneliness and deep contentment of solitude. The author tells us, “…sorrow came from these two feelings, the happines of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude.” Each finely developed character in this stunning book experiences this profound conflict and one senses that the author, through her characters might also. The writers life I imagine is in many ways a solitary one. Amanda Coplin spent eight years...more This is a beautifully written book, an incandesant lamentation and exultation of the loneliness and deep contentment of solitude. The author tells us, “…sorrow came from these two feelings, the happines of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude.” Each finely developed character in this stunning book experiences this profound conflict and one senses that the author, through her characters might also. The writers life I imagine is in many ways a solitary one. Amanda Coplin spent eight years writing this book. You sense in her characters the strength Coplin sees in solitude, the beauty and the sorrow of it, but mostly the strength and power one can derive from it.

Human relationships in this book are a bit trickier, offerring love, comfort and company, but also pain, loss and grief. They disrupt the peace of solitude. She sees this in the bonds of parental figures and their children, "..and that was the point of children: to bind us to the earth and to the present, to distract us from death. A distraction dressed as a blessing: but dressed so well and so truly, that it became a blessing. Or maybe it was the other way around: a blessing first, before a distraction."

Human relationships are a distraction.

I think Coplin is onto to something. The book takes place at the turn of the twentieth century, when maybe people were more at ease with a solitary life. There were certainly homesteaders by the thousands making their way on their own. Today a solitary life is often viewed with suspiscion. Coplin encourages us to contemplate the potential error of this thinking.

Talmadge the main character is a man who is rooted, comfortable and committed to his land, his orchard. He is an orchardist. But he is also a haunted man, seemingly ever in pursuit of the obscure objects of his conflicted desire, the missing fully intimate connection in his life with another person. Although he is a profoundly decent and caring man, he seems very alone always. Yet what makes this book so interesting, is that the author constantly is drawing the readers attention to the spare beauty of this almost existential aloneness. She doesn’t blame her characters for their reserve, their distancing, she seems to admire them for the strength it takes to face solitude.

And so did I. She is a remarkably talented writer. She weaves a spell of the fragile beauty of nature, of the orchard, of the seasons, the pull of people to their land and to each other.

This is a beautiful book. Complex. Dense. Worthy of contemplation and Coplin is a brilliant and talented writer. I wonder what she is writing now? It will be worth waiting another eight years to find out.

Highly recommend.
(less)

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Jun 07, 2013 Suetheartist rated it 4 of 5 stars

This debut of Amanda Coplin is such a lovely book. Written in a letter form with no quotations denoting the conversations of its characters. Descriptive words flow and the reader is taken into an apricot orchard or the pain of two young girls or the troubled thoughts of a solitude man whose is deep in pain with the disappearance of his sister which has ruled his life. All of these events manage to tie into each other in a craftily managed prose.
Two very young sisters escape from a child moleste...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Mmars rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just finished this and I am drained. Drained! So glad I wasn't reading the last 100 or so pages on public transportation. I sobbed. Literally. I was sobbing. Really haven't been hit this hard by a book in a long, long, time.

First off, the story wasn't flawless. There were a few elements of the story that seemed to stretch possibility. But I am more than willing to overlook them given the sheer awe I feel over this being a first novel.

Here's why.

- Point of view. Masterful. Coplin presents a sce...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Elliott rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lyrical and lovely. What a wonderful read.

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Oct 09, 2012 Annie rated it 2 of 5 stars

I won this book from goodreads first reads.

Why do people read books? I don't know about you but I read to either escape to someplace or time different from my own or to learn something. For most people I know this why they read.
Then why do I keep coming across books with such disturbing themes? Why on earth did the author think anyone would enjoy reading about fictional child prostitution? A man drugged out on opium offered a very young child to an old man. Completely disturbing. I don't even w...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-mt-bookpile

What a beautiful book - disturbing, yes, but quietly beautiful in the same way that Haruf's Plainsong or Robinson's Home and Gilead are.

Set in Washington State before it was a state, in what is now the area around Wenatchee, this story of Talmadge (orphaned at 13, fully alone by 17) and his orchard is a little haunting. He creates a beautiful space out of wilderness, selling apricots, walnuts, apples and other fruit in town but otherwise not part of the community, valuing his solitude and privac...more What a beautiful book - disturbing, yes, but quietly beautiful in the same way that Haruf's Plainsong or Robinson's Home and Gilead are.

Set in Washington State before it was a state, in what is now the area around Wenatchee, this story of Talmadge (orphaned at 13, fully alone by 17) and his orchard is a little haunting. He creates a beautiful space out of wilderness, selling apricots, walnuts, apples and other fruit in town but otherwise not part of the community, valuing his solitude and privacy above all (the only person in town he's friendly with is the doctor, Caroline Middey). The collision between his life and that of Jane and Della, two pregnant sisters on the run from their abusive, sadistic "owner" changes all three lives.

Della is the least balanced of the three mentally, and her sister's death just after the death of her own children (she was going to have twins) doesn't help. She abandons the house, staying outdoors and only cursorily taking care of Angeline, her niece, Jane's daughter. Slowly she abandons the orchards and the valley, taking off in search of something and leaving Talmadge, by then in his 50s, to care for a toddler. Growing up in the orchard, in all that solitude and away from children her own age, Angeline is actually a pretty well-balanced person (she does ultimately go to school, but this is in the late 1800s, so not for long) and enjoys Talmadge's company; he's at first a little flustered but settles into a laconic pattern of living with this semi-grandchild. In many ways, he's like Matthew Cuthbert (sans Marilla, obviously). The three lives intersect years later, with Talmadge and Della in jail despite public sympathy for their cause. Della dies there, but Talmadge comes home to the orchard for a year before dying himself.

The prose varies from sparse to more descriptive, steeping readers in this world. I felt jarred every time a modern noise interrupted my reading, surprised I wasn't back over 100 years ago in this orchard.

ARC provided by publisher.(less)

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Jan 12, 2013 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rather than being online and typing this, I should be finishing this book. I want to find out what happens! I'm about 60% through it (reading on Kindle).

I consider this book to one of those with a disturbing plot not necessarily deserving of the 5 stars but it is SO well written and absorbing. I especially like the way the author handles all the dialog. I look forward to more by this author.

*********

Dragged a bit at the end so I switched from 5 stars to 4 but I think this was mostly very well wr...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing. Once I started reading this story, I was hooked....I couldn't put it down....got cranky when I could steal time away to read. Loved the characters. Loved her writing: descriptive without being pushy, allowing for interpretation and at times, like poetry. Read if you enjoy historical fiction, westerns...if you liked Amy Bloom's "Away" or Charles Frazier's "Thirteen Moons" you may also like "The Orchardist." I look forward to reading more by Amanda Coplin.

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Jul 18, 2012 Lizfig rated it 5 of 5 stars

I stayed up all night last night and am halfway through... don't want it to end!

Update: This is an amazing and epic novel. I just can't believe this is her first! The imagery was so beautiful/powerful, and Talmadge is an amazingly well developed character (among a cast of other phenomenal personalities). Coplin really grabs you by the heart and won't let go.

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Mar 05, 2013 Trudy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Beautifully written!Illustration of what could happen to someone who loves a "troubled" person and in this process, looses themselves. The writing was so amazing, I had to give it 5 stars, however the story was quite unsettling.

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May 30, 2013 Dlee rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first half of the book was fantastic. The MC takes two feral sisters into his home and cares for them in the only way they are capable of accepting which is to leave them food and blankets but basically ignore them. The second half was just too long, too involved with alternating (short) chapters of different characters. None of whom did very much. Talmadge (did he have a first name?) reflected and missed his sister and searched for Della. Della roamed and wallowed in her misery. Not that it...more

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May 25, 2013 Elizabeth Earley rated it 4 of 5 stars

The accepted convention of what makes a good story is what Joseph Campbell outlined and called The Hero’s Journey. Granted, Campbell argued that this story line, having been mined from the history of world myth and theology, is something hard wired into the human psyche. Like how turtles born on the shore know to run toward the sea lest they be eaten. It’s inherent and imprinted and it points to something bigger that can’t be articulated. By employing it, people have created stories that are “tr...more

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May 17, 2013 Marilyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a lovely read from the beginning. The author took the reader on a gentle man's journey through a lifetime in his central Washington home and orchard -- through his losses and his discoveries, through his sadness and his industry, through his close relationships and his taciturn nature. The rest of the story simply revolves around his frontier life and his connections to others. Her descriptive language is amazing.

(view spoiler)...more

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May 14, 2013 Kathy Reinhart rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although the novel pulled me in from the first page, I had a difficult time continuing on from about the midway point. Too many times the story flow stopped abruptly with needless and repetitive description and/or internal monologue, which caused me to start 'skipping' what appeared to be boring and more of the same.

Another issue (for me) was the unanswered questions and the hard-to-believe. Taking Della's beginnings as we know them into consideration, I found it quite unbelievable that she woul...more

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Talmadge's Sister	3	61	Apr 14, 2013 02:40pm
Who is the girls' father/mother?	2	58	Apr 08, 2013 11:35am
Excellent first novel	5	51	Mar 05, 2013 03:02am

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About Amanda Coplin

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.

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“She revered solitude, but only because there was the possibility of breaking it. Of communing at last with another.” — 13 people liked it

“When he was a boy he was happy when the men arrived, and in a way wanted them to remain forever--but he was also anxious that they had arrived, that he was no longer alone. The sorrow came from those two feelings--the happiness of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude. That was what he had felt, he thought, and what to some extent he still felt.” — 4 people liked it

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