I recommend "The Arborist"

Submitted by Jerry Halberstadt on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 14:22

As I read the last page, I was overtaken by a sense of loss and of homesickness for the people and the place.

The natural world of the orchard full of fruit trees, the wild horses, the seasons. People who had been wounded by loss, grief, and guilt. And how these damaged souls sought to heal and nurture each other, and to tend the land, which itself tended and healed the people. And of course I was drawn to and fascinated by the details of farming apples and other fruit trees. And continually amazed at how Amanda Coplin, seemingly without literary artifice, could allow me to inhabit the interior selves of each of the actors, recalling their memories, seeing what they saw, sharing their feelings, and intuiting the feelings of others who were silent, mute.

"I am interested in how we humans live in a landscape; how we physically reside in it, but also how it functions in our imagination. How we see the landscape."--Amanda Coplin

Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist, 2012