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A review by katykelly
At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
5.0
Wow. Builds slowly to an unmissable historical drama.
I loved Girl with a Pearl Earring and saw Chevalier had written another historical piece, the setting fascinated me - frontier America, just before the Gold Rush.
A warring couple who settled with their children in the swamp their wagon got stuck in are just about surviving in Ohio. Sadie is permanently fuming at her husband's obsession with his apple trees and takes petty revenges whenever she can. She has no problems with the applejack their fruit provides her with, however. James watches his fruit grow and his children die of swamp fever around him every year.
Their remaining children grow amidst the damp and desolate swampland as their parents' bickering only worsens.
We then jump forward 15 years to the Gold Rush era, when one son, Robert, is writing home to his family in Ohio. Just why did he leave home at 12? And what future can he make for himself in a land overtaken by greed? His present and past eventually collide, and we learn the Goodenoughs' fate and legacy.
I was entranced by this story. The setting is incredibly vivid, the sense of mud and decay in the swamps hard to see through. Sadie is quite a character, her muddied emotions regarding her family if not ones we would share, very human. The difficulty in surviving and thriving in these conditions is made clear, the ease with which death could take you shocking.
Robert's story is hard to put down, his travels taking us across America with him, his letters home hinting at events we can only guess at, and which come full circle as his past returns to him all of a sudden and he is forced to make choices he has avoided since childhood.
There are some very strong and powerful women in this story, not overtly so, but those with 'sass' and a lifeforce that means that even though it is men who hoed and dug and worked, the women were also breaking new frontiers too and doing it a lot more quietly than their male counterparts. Some rather admirable examples here.
A great story, almost an epic if not in length. I hope the story is one day continued. Loved the setting, the characters, the slow reveal and structure - a winner.
I loved Girl with a Pearl Earring and saw Chevalier had written another historical piece, the setting fascinated me - frontier America, just before the Gold Rush.
A warring couple who settled with their children in the swamp their wagon got stuck in are just about surviving in Ohio. Sadie is permanently fuming at her husband's obsession with his apple trees and takes petty revenges whenever she can. She has no problems with the applejack their fruit provides her with, however. James watches his fruit grow and his children die of swamp fever around him every year.
Their remaining children grow amidst the damp and desolate swampland as their parents' bickering only worsens.
We then jump forward 15 years to the Gold Rush era, when one son, Robert, is writing home to his family in Ohio. Just why did he leave home at 12? And what future can he make for himself in a land overtaken by greed? His present and past eventually collide, and we learn the Goodenoughs' fate and legacy.
I was entranced by this story. The setting is incredibly vivid, the sense of mud and decay in the swamps hard to see through. Sadie is quite a character, her muddied emotions regarding her family if not ones we would share, very human. The difficulty in surviving and thriving in these conditions is made clear, the ease with which death could take you shocking.
Robert's story is hard to put down, his travels taking us across America with him, his letters home hinting at events we can only guess at, and which come full circle as his past returns to him all of a sudden and he is forced to make choices he has avoided since childhood.
There are some very strong and powerful women in this story, not overtly so, but those with 'sass' and a lifeforce that means that even though it is men who hoed and dug and worked, the women were also breaking new frontiers too and doing it a lot more quietly than their male counterparts. Some rather admirable examples here.
A great story, almost an epic if not in length. I hope the story is one day continued. Loved the setting, the characters, the slow reveal and structure - a winner.