The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

The Orchardist

Amanda Coplin

This is a haunting and tender tale of an orchardist’s solitary existence, thrown into emotional turmoil when he becomes obsessed with nurturing two feral sisters. A hypnotic read, with vivid imagery of nature’s landscape and the human soul. In essence it captures the beauty and sorrow of living alone, and the love and pain of intimate relationships. I read and read and read, and didn’t want to stop.

Extract
And the wind was alive the day they put Jane into the ground; it played over the plateau and made the sound of rain in the tree and in the long dry grass. And Talmadge was relieved: for the sound hid them all from each other, and Della in her grief. Her hair blowing over her face as she stood beside the grave, unmoving.
Parallels
  • Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
  • The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
  • Silas Marner by George Eliot