About The Orchardist
• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Harper (August 21, 2012)
At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a reclusive orchardist, William Talmadge, tends to apples and apricots as if they were loved ones. A gentle man, he’s found solace in the sweetness of the fruit he grows and the quiet, beating heart of the land he cultivates. One day, two teenage girls appear and steal his fruit from the market; they later return to the outskirts of his orchard to see the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, the girls take up on Talmadge’s land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Just as the girls begin to trust him, men arrive in the orchard with guns, and the shattering tragedy that follows will set Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect but also to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.
Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, Amanda Coplin weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune. She writes with breathtaking precision and empathy, and in The Orchardist she crafts 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.
About Amanda Coplin
Amanda Coplin was born in Wenatchee, Washington. She received her BA from the University of Oregon and MFA from the University of Minnesota. A recipient of residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the Omi International Arts Center at Ledig House in Ghent, New York, she lives in Portland, Oregon.
Check out The Orcharist on Goodreads.
Amanda’s Tour Stops
Tuesday, August 21st: Cold Read
Wednesday, August 22nd: Paperspines
Thursday, August 23rd: nomadreader
Monday, August 27th: Man of La Book
Tuesday, August 28th: West Metro Mommy
Thursday, August 30th: girlichef
Monday, September 3rd: A Room of One’s Own
Wednesday, September 5th: The Lost Entwife
Thursday, September 6th: Much Madness is Divinest Sense
Wednesday, September 12th: The Feminist Texican [Reads]
Thursday, September 13th: Oh! Paper Pages
Friday, September 14th: Write Meg
Thursday, September 20th: Shall Write