At the Edge of the Orchard: A Novel

What an interesting, different story! But I shouldn't have worried with Tracy Chevalier as every one of her books that I have read have been strong and excellent reading.This one starts with the twist right at the beginning: we meet one of the most mismatched couples I've ever met in a book (granted I don't look for books about mismatched couples ...). James and Sadie Goodenough may have been attracted to each other when they were happily settled in Connecticut but we meet them after they have left the Goodenough family farm and struck out on their own, in the Black Swamp of northwest Ohio.Sounds like a place that would challenge anybody but James makes a good run at settling in this contrary and difficult patch of country. To maintain their land and raise their five children, they must tame their patch of land by growing a garden and an orchard of 50 apple trees. Its a struggle for any couple but made more difficult because Sadie is bitter and hates being on this patch of land and she is jealous of James' love for the orchard, especially, the "biters," fruit that is sweet and good for eating, vs. the "Spitters," used for juice and applejack.The Goodenoughs are not a happy family and soon enough, their youngest child, Robert, flees the family home and travels west, eventually reaching California. With no more land further west in which to flee, Robert finding himself falling in love with trees as his father before him. In the midst of it all, Robert finds himself settling his past debts and adjusting to his life, striking a claim to a future of his own making and choosing.

Dark but uplifting in the end. Worth the read. Fast paced, unexpected stories and very enjoyable albeit sad. Read it.

One rotten apple can spoil the entire bunch. Sarah is a drunk. Abrasive, mean-spirited, and bitter, she is angry at her lot in life and find solace in apple jack, the liquor made from the bitter apples her husband is attempting to grow in the inhospitable soil of the frontier. James loves his sweet apples, the seedlings he patiently carts around and transplants from his nostalgic home in Connecticut. He relishes their taste because they remind him of the possibility of a sweet life. It is the only thing he has that gives him hope. Stuck in a stagnant marriage, in a swampy homestead, he spends his energy grafting trees trying to make his perfect apple, rather than fix his fractured home life. His children are neglected, ignored, and seemingly mere bystanders in his escalating war with his wife.. SPOILER ALERT- Tragedy strikes, his son leaves and shifts aimlessly around the west, while the family dies off like untended saplings.I didn't love this book as I have loved Chevaliers others. I did get the symbolism of a family grafting together much like James's beloved trees. The hard-ships and hard-scrabble life of settlers seemed glossed over. All too soon, we are traipsing all over the west with rootless Robert. Coincidences abound, there's a happy hooker and the book seems to become rootless itself. The end was rather predictable, a bit of a disappointment. The whole story seemed cobbled together like the trees Chevalier so perfectly described. That being said, nobody can evoke the flavor of a time period like Tracey Chevalier. Just like apples, some books are sweeter than others.

Very well written book. I grew up in apple orchard, so I really enjoyed it. Recommend!

Not my favourite kind of story. Characters were not very pleasant! The apples tasted good in the beginning. I have loved her other books.

Tracy Chevalier is one of my favorite writers and this book doesn't disappoint. Every story reads like a treasured gem. Her characters feel like our friends and she manages to join pathos with truly funny situations. There's always something interesting to learn in every one of her books. A truly gifted writer.

This is not Girl With a Pearl Earring, but, then, nothing could top that gem of a book. At the Edge of the Orchard is only incidentally about Johnny Appleseed, but it is very much about apples as a metaphor for the forbidden yet magical fruit that can transform lives, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil and ruin. Chevalier has a knack for capturing the language and imagery of a time and place long removed from the present. Frontier life in the Ohio swamps is brutal to the extreme and the Goodenough family battles the muck and weather and hardship as they wrest a livIng at the edge of the Black Swamp, Ohio 1838. The apple orchard that James Goodenough painfully plants and nurtures is the one place of rich, rewarding beauty and promise in his farm. The trees come from that itinerant figure from folklore, John Chapman, or Johnny Appleseed. He paddles in and out of the story, bringing saplings, seeds, young trees to sell. But there is one kind of apple that James Goodenough brought with him from his family farm in Connecticut, the Golden Pippin. It tastes of honey and pineapple and it is the beating heart of this book. The story shifts to follow young Robert Goodenough, who abruptly leaves the homestead and wanders through the Midwest, eventually ending in California. Always, he remembers that Golden Pippin. Always, he blocks the memories that come whenever he thinks of the honey and pineapple taste of this fruit. The book is a mystery within the story of a West that has long vanished. What drove Robert away? And what will bring him back to the lost farm and the Golden Pippin tree? There are many fascinating vignettes in the book, my favorite being the story of the giant Sequoia grove that an enterprising adventurer turned into a hotel, complete with a bowling alley and a dancing floor on the gigantic stump of a fallen sequoia. But ultimately it is Robert's story that we want to know. And what happened in that orchard of good and evil.

Bought this book for myself, I’m such a fan of Tracy Chevalier’s books. It did not disappoint

This novel is a gripping, moving read. It's fabulous yarn with a colourful, believable selection of characters. It's about apples and apple trees but at the core of the tale is a single minded man called Goodenough!

Muy realista y muy reveladora de la realidad del 1840-1856

Yet far more than a tale. Tracy Chevalier has gone once more to outstanding lengths to bring the reader a story with true historical facts and people. It is an education in itself reading her books. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found Robert to be an endearing character. Well worth reading.

Io sono un appasionata della lettura e questo libro ho trovato bello Ed anche informativo del periodo nei stati uniti.