The Orchardist
"At the turn of the twentieth century in the Pacific Northwest, reclusive orchardist William Talmadge tends to his apples and apricots. One day, two teenaged girls steal his fruit and later return to his orchard to see the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and pregnant, they take up on Talmadge's land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. But just as the girls begin to trust him, men arrive in the orchard with guns ..." --P. [4] of cover.
What you might want to know about The Orchardist
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In the early 1900s, in a high valley of the Cascade foothills, the quiet apple and apricot grower Talmadge wakes one morning to find two heavily pregnant teenage girls stealing fruit from his orchard. He sets a plate of food on the porch each night, and slowly the sisters move closer.
The Orchardist was written by Amanda Coplin and published in 2012. It was Coplin's debut novel and was widely cited among the best novels of 2012 by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Yes, broadly. The Orchardist is a literary Western set in early 20th-century Pacific Northwest, more in the contemplative tradition of John Steinbeck and Marilynne Robinson than the action-driven Western.
The Orchardist is 437 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Orchardist takes most readers 7 to 9 hours to finish.
The Orchardist is a standalone novel by Amanda Coplin, not part of a series.
The Orchardist is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
