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Golden Delicious
An adventurous literary ride that takes you to the heart of family, love, and memory
Welcome to Appleseed, Massachusetts, where stories grow in soil, sentences are kept as pets, and pianos change your point of view. Golden Delicious chronicles one family's arrival in the small town and the narrator's rich, vivid childhood—driving to the local flea market with his father and sister, causing trouble at school, pedaling through the neighborhood on his Bicycle Built for Two. When a curious infestation causes a blight in the soil, though, the local economy sours and the narrator's family is torn apart. His mother joins a flying militia known as The Mothers; his father takes an all-consuming job; his sister runs away for a better life elsewhere. Who will save Appleseed? Will it be the Memory of Johnny Appleseed? The Mothers? The narrator himself?
Heartbreaking, funny, and wildly-imaginative, Golden Delicious is a tour-de-force unlike anything you've ever read before. Fans of Karen Russell and Italo Calvino will love Christopher Boucher's new novel, a follow-up to his acclaimed 2011 debut How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. You'll root for the narrator and his pet sentence, laugh at their absurd predicaments, and cheer for the family at the core of this drama that, despite every obstacle, fights to stay together.
Welcome to Appleseed, Massachusetts, where stories grow in soil, sentences are kept as pets, and pianos change your point of view. Golden Delicious chronicles one family's arrival in the small town and the narrator's rich, vivid childhood—driving to the local flea market with his father and sister, causing trouble at school, pedaling through the neighborhood on his Bicycle Built for Two. When a curious infestation causes a blight in the soil, though, the local economy sours and the narrator's family is torn apart. His mother joins a flying militia known as The Mothers; his father takes an all-consuming job; his sister runs away for a better life elsewhere. Who will save Appleseed? Will it be the Memory of Johnny Appleseed? The Mothers? The narrator himself?
Heartbreaking, funny, and wildly-imaginative, Golden Delicious is a tour-de-force unlike anything you've ever read before. Fans of Karen Russell and Italo Calvino will love Christopher Boucher's new novel, a follow-up to his acclaimed 2011 debut How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. You'll root for the narrator and his pet sentence, laugh at their absurd predicaments, and cheer for the family at the core of this drama that, despite every obstacle, fights to stay together.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 5, 2016
3 people are currently reading
269 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Boucher
190 books14 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
This is Christopher^Boucher, where ^=space. (default profile)
About the Author:
Christopher Boucher is the author of the novels How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive and Golden Delicious.
He's also an Associate Professor of the Practice of English at Boston College and the managing editor of Post Road Magazine.
This is Christopher^Boucher, where ^=space. (default profile)
About the Author:
Christopher Boucher is the author of the novels How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive and Golden Delicious.
He's also an Associate Professor of the Practice of English at Boston College and the managing editor of Post Road Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 23, 2015
This book was so odd, but in all of the best ways. I can't even explain why I liked it. Very quirky and unique.
January 15, 2025
this is the strangest book i’ve ever read.
as with all experimental fiction there is a catch in the writing , and Boucher’s catch is that everything is a synecdoche. i mean literally everything. it’s no longer “money”: people pay in truths and hypotheses and ideas. it’s no longer “water”: people drink happiness and sadness and bitterness. the cops are orange traffic cones and the school is taught by brooms and erasers. words become characters and lose identity (or gain meaning?); without exception, everything that is a noun is personified. it’s very much Wayside School (Louis Sachar) with how absurd the story is, and while it kind of grew on my nerves towards the end, i did appreciate how lighthearted this made the topics. no, the narrator doesn’t have an eating disorder or attention deficit: instead he falls in love with a vending machine, goes on dates with a community theater, and nurtures a pet sentence. no, he doesn’t have absent parents: instead his mother enlists in their equivalent of an air force, his father sprouts gears from his ears, and his house hangs himself. stupid, yeah, but undeniably straightforward.
even though the world building is all over the place, Boucher somehow manages to flesh out the skeleton of a decent coming-of-age story which i was kind of impressed by. however i’m taking a star off bc i hated the stuff with The Reader and breaking the fourth wall—which, to be fair, is kind of unavoidable when the setting is inside a book (as in, paragraphs for streets, margins for alleyways and sketchy neighborhoods, and p(l)otholes) but i still wished it wasn’t so prevalent. the narrator gets buried alive by a suicidal thought (here’s where the symbolism backfires imo, like come on) and it takes the mother and father bringing in The Reader to whisper some words of encouragement to revive him. seriously? i could bowl a perfect game with how many times my eyes rolled into the back of my head.
3.5/5 -> 2.5/5
as with all experimental fiction there is a catch in the writing , and Boucher’s catch is that everything is a synecdoche. i mean literally everything. it’s no longer “money”: people pay in truths and hypotheses and ideas. it’s no longer “water”: people drink happiness and sadness and bitterness. the cops are orange traffic cones and the school is taught by brooms and erasers. words become characters and lose identity (or gain meaning?); without exception, everything that is a noun is personified. it’s very much Wayside School (Louis Sachar) with how absurd the story is, and while it kind of grew on my nerves towards the end, i did appreciate how lighthearted this made the topics. no, the narrator doesn’t have an eating disorder or attention deficit: instead he falls in love with a vending machine, goes on dates with a community theater, and nurtures a pet sentence. no, he doesn’t have absent parents: instead his mother enlists in their equivalent of an air force, his father sprouts gears from his ears, and his house hangs himself. stupid, yeah, but undeniably straightforward.
even though the world building is all over the place, Boucher somehow manages to flesh out the skeleton of a decent coming-of-age story which i was kind of impressed by. however i’m taking a star off bc i hated the stuff with The Reader and breaking the fourth wall—which, to be fair, is kind of unavoidable when the setting is inside a book (as in, paragraphs for streets, margins for alleyways and sketchy neighborhoods, and p(l)otholes) but i still wished it wasn’t so prevalent. the narrator gets buried alive by a suicidal thought (here’s where the symbolism backfires imo, like come on) and it takes the mother and father bringing in The Reader to whisper some words of encouragement to revive him. seriously? i could bowl a perfect game with how many times my eyes rolled into the back of my head.
3.5/5 -> 2.5/5
August 6, 2016
"...the Reader finished reading. Not great, [the Reader] decided, but not bad either." (page 330)
If you look at any of the blurbs or descriptions on Amazon, Amazon.uk, Goodreads, Edelweiss, or elsewhere, you will form the impression that this is a book with a story, characters and a plot. Well, not exactly. This is a post-postmodern experiment with a lot of clever wordplay and an extensive, but not unlimited, bag of tricks. I very much enjoyed it, but even my patience began to wear a bit thin towards the end.
If you cut your teeth on authors like Donald Barthelme you will know exactly what to expect from this book. Sure, there are characters. They do things and see and think and feel and speak. There is a plot of sorts and even a resolution. But there is no "story" or "narrative". Rather, there are many, many themes and "bits". Coming of age, family, belonging, abandonment, fear of motherhood, fear of being boxed in, community, personal and family history, joy, the many and varied forms and aspects of creating and creativity. Barthelme and the other early postmoderns wrote short stories or loosely connected episodic and quicksilver "pieces". That's what you get here, disguised as a novel, but really a loose collection of bits and ideas and variations.
All of this is tied together with flights of verbal fancy and lots of playful literalism. When a mother flies away from her family, she literally puts on goggles and a flightskirt and flies away. Ideas take on disturbing physicality, so sentences roam the fields and words are found scattered about on the ground, (aka pages). Sometimes you get an antic "Alice in Biblioland" sort of feeling, with outlandish and sly or edgy characters and scenes. Just to pile on, the author changes narrative voice and perspective frequently, and addresses you the "Reader" often enough to make sure you get the joke.
This is all a pretty rich feast, and you can get the equivalent of literary sugar shock if you don't pause from time to time. I'm good with that, and admire ambitious experiments. If you go in with your eyes open, (try to find a chapter sample on one of the book sites), you'll have a good time.
(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
If you look at any of the blurbs or descriptions on Amazon, Amazon.uk, Goodreads, Edelweiss, or elsewhere, you will form the impression that this is a book with a story, characters and a plot. Well, not exactly. This is a post-postmodern experiment with a lot of clever wordplay and an extensive, but not unlimited, bag of tricks. I very much enjoyed it, but even my patience began to wear a bit thin towards the end.
If you cut your teeth on authors like Donald Barthelme you will know exactly what to expect from this book. Sure, there are characters. They do things and see and think and feel and speak. There is a plot of sorts and even a resolution. But there is no "story" or "narrative". Rather, there are many, many themes and "bits". Coming of age, family, belonging, abandonment, fear of motherhood, fear of being boxed in, community, personal and family history, joy, the many and varied forms and aspects of creating and creativity. Barthelme and the other early postmoderns wrote short stories or loosely connected episodic and quicksilver "pieces". That's what you get here, disguised as a novel, but really a loose collection of bits and ideas and variations.
All of this is tied together with flights of verbal fancy and lots of playful literalism. When a mother flies away from her family, she literally puts on goggles and a flightskirt and flies away. Ideas take on disturbing physicality, so sentences roam the fields and words are found scattered about on the ground, (aka pages). Sometimes you get an antic "Alice in Biblioland" sort of feeling, with outlandish and sly or edgy characters and scenes. Just to pile on, the author changes narrative voice and perspective frequently, and addresses you the "Reader" often enough to make sure you get the joke.
This is all a pretty rich feast, and you can get the equivalent of literary sugar shock if you don't pause from time to time. I'm good with that, and admire ambitious experiments. If you go in with your eyes open, (try to find a chapter sample on one of the book sites), you'll have a good time.
(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
February 22, 2016
At its core, this fever dream of a novel is about a boy trying to come of age as his family and his world fall apart.
No pun intended. They have consequences.
Golden Delicious is constructed to be as much about the language selected by Boucher as how that language interacts with itself on the page. Like reading any novel written in dialect or based in a different country, this novel forces the reader to consciously be part of the book, to follow the sentences wherever they may lead. One doesn't skim this fascinating fiction and hope to come out the other side knowing what the hell they just read.
No pun intended. They have consequences.
Golden Delicious is constructed to be as much about the language selected by Boucher as how that language interacts with itself on the page. Like reading any novel written in dialect or based in a different country, this novel forces the reader to consciously be part of the book, to follow the sentences wherever they may lead. One doesn't skim this fascinating fiction and hope to come out the other side knowing what the hell they just read.
July 8, 2016
This is probably the oddest book I have ever read. It's hard to even describe it. There was only one review of it when I bought the book ... and that review was horrible. Even so, something about the book's description made me want to give it a try. The story is told via a lot of language "words". The sentence, "I am." is a pet. The main character is ________. Time is measured in pages. When the home becomes a house, it kills itself. I found the book hypnotizing. I just let my brain go and read. This book is not for everyone, but I really liked it.
November 16, 2016
One of the best novels I've ever read. Combines the magical sensibilities of stepping-into-Narnia with heartache and loss and that wandering, loose-footed self. So good.
November 21, 2016
Very imaginative, insightful, zany, and entertaining !
February 22, 2017
"Next to Mothers and Cones, Librarians were probably the most powerful people in Appleseed: they were dizzyingly smart, highly trained, paid a lot of meaning, and great at disco--they knew all the latest moves."
I spent the first 100-150pp of Golden Delicious trying to decide whether I actually wanted to keep reading it, but I'm glad I did. The book really picks up in the second half, and _____ and the other inhabitants of Appleseed suddenly begin to matter in a way they didn't before. By the end, I was a bit sad to be leaving Appleseed and its residents behind.
I'm hesitant to say that Golden Delicious was an unqualified success, largely because I don't think it was. He has a clear knack for compelling characters and interesting plots, but I don't think he's quite there yet when it comes to form. I'll probably pick up Boucher's next novel -- I'm excited to see where he goes next.
I spent the first 100-150pp of Golden Delicious trying to decide whether I actually wanted to keep reading it, but I'm glad I did. The book really picks up in the second half, and _____ and the other inhabitants of Appleseed suddenly begin to matter in a way they didn't before. By the end, I was a bit sad to be leaving Appleseed and its residents behind.
I'm hesitant to say that Golden Delicious was an unqualified success, largely because I don't think it was. He has a clear knack for compelling characters and interesting plots, but I don't think he's quite there yet when it comes to form. I'll probably pick up Boucher's next novel -- I'm excited to see where he goes next.
March 18, 2017
This was definitely one of the strangest books I have ever read. I'm not sure exactly what it all meant but I do know that I loved it, and if Golden Delicious is any indication, this author is a complete genius.
There are many mentions of libraries, not to mention disco libraries/librarians, and you, the Reader, are also part of the story. It often reads like a page from Mad Libs with random words substituted for the words that would be accurate and would make sense. (Don't let that put you off. It is a major part of this book's charm.) It's really odd and weird, but also so worth the read. If you start it and don't feel like it's going to be your thing, just keep reading; you will soon get to the point where you love it and don't want to do anything else until you have finished it.
I am so glad I discovered this. One minute you are reading something (seemingly) completely nonsensical, and then it becomes something really brilliant and clever, and you are in complete awe of the author's talent and reading that section aloud to whomever is within earshot. It's so great and so much fun. I checked this out from the library, but I think I am going to buy a copy just because I want to support this book and the author. LOVE it.
Some of my favorite things about this book:
The Reader being part of the story
The themes of books/language/things literary (the pet sentence)(bookworms)
"Mothersmokes"--the 6-foot long cigarettes his mom smokes
The bands _____sees in concert: the UCs, their song titles (and album title) and lyrics, not to mention the OCDs ("Check it AGAIN, CHECK IT AGAIN")
I am going to read Boucher's first book also, and I will certainly be on the lookout for what he writes in the future. Highly recommended!
There are many mentions of libraries, not to mention disco libraries/librarians, and you, the Reader, are also part of the story. It often reads like a page from Mad Libs with random words substituted for the words that would be accurate and would make sense. (Don't let that put you off. It is a major part of this book's charm.) It's really odd and weird, but also so worth the read. If you start it and don't feel like it's going to be your thing, just keep reading; you will soon get to the point where you love it and don't want to do anything else until you have finished it.
I am so glad I discovered this. One minute you are reading something (seemingly) completely nonsensical, and then it becomes something really brilliant and clever, and you are in complete awe of the author's talent and reading that section aloud to whomever is within earshot. It's so great and so much fun. I checked this out from the library, but I think I am going to buy a copy just because I want to support this book and the author. LOVE it.
Some of my favorite things about this book:
The Reader being part of the story
The themes of books/language/things literary (the pet sentence)(bookworms)
"Mothersmokes"--the 6-foot long cigarettes his mom smokes
The bands _____sees in concert: the UCs, their song titles (and album title) and lyrics, not to mention the OCDs ("Check it AGAIN, CHECK IT AGAIN")
I am going to read Boucher's first book also, and I will certainly be on the lookout for what he writes in the future. Highly recommended!
December 13, 2019
Someone recommended this book to me, while warning me that it takes a little bit of work to read. It does, most of the time you're not exactly sure what's happening, but if you love language in all its forms, it is an amazing book and it is hilarious. I loved it. It's not for everyone though. It's hard to explain what it's about. It's like language is alive. So one time the hero (his name is _, make of that what you want) finds a sentence in the wild, and brings it back home. It's a baby, it only says "I am" for now. His dad tells him that he can't keep it, that it's too much work to look after a sentence, but he is determined. I don't know, the book is full of these little magical moments of "what if". Very inventive, funny and also sad (the family in the book is not doing great). I think it will turn some people off, but it's worth trying to see how you like it.
July 3, 2022
This book was an absolute, absurd delight. It’s not for everyone - some people will be put off by the absolutely absurd world the author has created - but that’s the very thing that draws me to this work. I love the unexpected moments when some inanimate object (or even building!) turns out to be sentient. I would suggest that readers give it some time - the first chapters really just introduce you to this world. My favorite parts were in the second half of the book.
March 3, 2022
I like quirky fiction but this was alternate universe, LSD-flashback material! A creative marvel but not for everybody, I did like all the local Western Mass references. Can’t wait to shop at the Big When!
May 12, 2017
Pretentious in parts, but magical when it works.
September 9, 2017
Not great, you decided, but not bad, either.
This book was so odd. Definitely experimental fiction. I liked it for as many reasons as I hated it. Mixed bag, and definitely not for everyone.
This book was so odd. Definitely experimental fiction. I liked it for as many reasons as I hated it. Mixed bag, and definitely not for everyone.
November 5, 2017
Quick, quirky read. Not for everyone
July 30, 2018
Another brilliant excursion into the alternate universe that lives inside Christopher Boucher's head. See full review http://thebooksmithblog.wordpress.com
A Must Read!
A Must Read!
March 25, 2023
Four points for experimentation.
August 2, 2025
Amidst the random chaos and narrative experimentalism this is ultimately a coming-of-age story set against the decay of a small town named Appleseed.
It's simultaneously set in the real world and inside the literal pages of a book but with apple metaphors heavily overlaying everything. It seemed the rules for each of these worlds and how they interact change at a whim. The police officers are traffic cones, librarians are, by default, all great disco dancers, the nameless protagonist falls in love with a sentient vending machine that holds the confectionary inside it as its prisoners. If there's some underlying logic to any of this, I couldn't discern it.
Everything is alive. Literally everything. Individual potato chips, bits of dirt, sentences, words, thoughts (both present and past tense). This is all well and good but without some apparent and underlying logic to follow I was overwhelmed at times by shear randomness and found myself rolling my eyes at times. Some of the imagery is quite striking (which it's bound to be when you throw so many ideas at the wall) but for the most part the unstructured chaos went straight past me. Sometimes a dream can mean something and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it's so hard to parse any useful information from it that you just let it wash over you to be forgotten in the morning.
I appreciate the effort to push the boundaries of modern storytelling and some of the ideas, like the 'point of view piano' were really enjoyable but I felt the fever-dream world would've worked better if it were pushed a bit further into the backdrop rather than the foreground. There is, admittedly, a much better balance in the last fifty pages. There's a little more structure and intent for the characters to work with and the more human story beneath the random chaos comes to the surface and is undeniably touching, if not a bit rushed.
It's simultaneously set in the real world and inside the literal pages of a book but with apple metaphors heavily overlaying everything. It seemed the rules for each of these worlds and how they interact change at a whim. The police officers are traffic cones, librarians are, by default, all great disco dancers, the nameless protagonist falls in love with a sentient vending machine that holds the confectionary inside it as its prisoners. If there's some underlying logic to any of this, I couldn't discern it.
Everything is alive. Literally everything. Individual potato chips, bits of dirt, sentences, words, thoughts (both present and past tense). This is all well and good but without some apparent and underlying logic to follow I was overwhelmed at times by shear randomness and found myself rolling my eyes at times. Some of the imagery is quite striking (which it's bound to be when you throw so many ideas at the wall) but for the most part the unstructured chaos went straight past me. Sometimes a dream can mean something and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it's so hard to parse any useful information from it that you just let it wash over you to be forgotten in the morning.
I appreciate the effort to push the boundaries of modern storytelling and some of the ideas, like the 'point of view piano' were really enjoyable but I felt the fever-dream world would've worked better if it were pushed a bit further into the backdrop rather than the foreground. There is, admittedly, a much better balance in the last fifty pages. There's a little more structure and intent for the characters to work with and the more human story beneath the random chaos comes to the surface and is undeniably touching, if not a bit rushed.
February 13, 2017
Didn't care for this as much as I hoped to. It's a little too quirky for me, and if it is an allegory, it went way over my head. For me, the actual compelling part of the narrative didn't start until 225 pages in. I'd have much rather read a whole book about The Mothers instead.
June 15, 2016
Golden Delicious is written in an unusual, experimental style. It wasn't the story so much that was compelling but the author's concept: the book truly had a unique point of view. Anyhow, moments after I finished reading it, I was relieved. I wanted to get on with other reading and I was now released from "the task" and could do so. Finishing the book was a task, a chore. Although I rated the book two stars I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. For me it was the equivalent of going to the Museum of Modern Art: I don't really like it or understand it but I did it just for the sake of saying that I've done it.
May 18, 2016
Thoroughly disappointing. A mundane story about a family falling apart that the author tries to make interesting through his "kooky" use of language. Unfortunately it offers no insights or depth, but is simply annoying from start to finish.
I purchased this book based upon the glowing praise on the cover from George Saunders. Well he's one hell of a bullsh*t artist. I wish Chris Boucher who wrote this was at least that - he's more of a boredom artist. I want my money back.
I purchased this book based upon the glowing praise on the cover from George Saunders. Well he's one hell of a bullsh*t artist. I wish Chris Boucher who wrote this was at least that - he's more of a boredom artist. I want my money back.
Read
February 6, 2017DNF.. not for me.
November 2, 2016
I thought this book was very clever. My hometown is the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed so I really enjoyed reading this and the perspective of the book was certainly unique!
March 31, 2017
Well, this is probably the most unusual book I've ever encountered. When the main character's name is _____., when you can have a pet sentence called I am, when stories grow like plants, and you need to test your soil for doubts, and when your teacher can be a giant pink feather boa, you know you are in a different world altogether. Pretty much every noun is anthropomorphized. I kept turning pages just to see what odd thing would come up next, but eventually I started skimming because it stopped engaging me as much. I did love much of the playful use of language, such as meaning standing in for wealth. Are you meaningful? The inside of Christopher Boucher's mind must be a very interesting place to be.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews