Book Beginnings (6) - The Orchardist - Amanda Coplin

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays

The idea, as stated on the host's blog, is 'to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.' There's a hash tag #BookBeginnings for twitter etc too, and a master linky list on the host's blog. I've got a couple of books on the go at the moment so I've just picked one out to mention here.

My Book Beginning

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

'His face was pitted as the moon. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and thick without being stocky, though one could see how he would pass into stockiness; he had already taken on the barrel-chested sturdiness of an old man. His ears were elephantine, a feature most commented on when he was younger, when the ears stuck out from his head; but now they had darkened like the rest of his sun-exposed flesh and lay agains his skull more than at any other time in his life, and were tough, the flesh granular like the rind of some fruit.'


What an intimate and detailed first few lines, quite vividly introducing the man who will be the main character in the novel. I've just started this one and it's beautifully written so far. 

Here's the synopsis from goodreads:

At the turn of the 20th century in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a solitary orchardist, 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 and 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 Talmadage?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 to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past. Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, Coplin has woven a tapestry of secluded people who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune. She writes with breathtaking precision and empathy, and in THE ORCHARDIST has crafted 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.