The Family Orchard - Softcover

Eve, Nomi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860499236 ISBN 13: 9781860499234

Publisher: Virago Press Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

A beautifully crafted story of a Jewish family, reaching back five generations. Using births, deaths and family legends, here are stories of how people meet and fall in love, of family secrets and tragedies, of sex and marriage. Yochanan and his wife Esther who lived happily despite Esther's long-time affair with the local baker; Avra who has a penchant for stealing (and returning) who marries Shimon, an immigrant from Russia; Miriam, a child of Eastern Europe who sews her family's futures into her cloth. Shyly sexy and funny, always rooted in the domestic and the familiar, this is an enchanting, complex novel which draws on the voices of many generations from far and wide, reaching across the Diaspora - Israel, Europe and America.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Absolutely wonderful in just about every single way... Immediately seductive."
--Newsday

"Enchanting, highly readable... The Family Orchard captures two centuries of Israel's modern history through the dreams, the sacrifices, the bravery of one remarkable Jewish family. It's a marvelous debut."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Ambitious... A meaty, old-fashioned multi-generational family saga."
--The Washington Post Book World

"[The Family Orchard is] told in the bold colors of an Isaac Bashevis Singer fable... [Eve] is a storyteller of uncommon energy and poise."
--The New York Times

"Wonderfully accomplished... in a league with other multigenerational epics like One Hundred Years of Solitude."
--Talk

"Ripe with vivid images... An earthy, unorthodox view of family history, one imbued with love and warmth and humor."
--Detroit Free Press

"Blends traditional Jewish storytelling with the ingredients of postmodernism: magical realism, multiple authorial voices, a playful conflation of fiction ad nonfiction, even woodcut illustrations and eclectic design."
--The Boston Globe

From the Inside Flap:

In the bestselling tradition of The Red Tent, The Family Orchard is a spellbinding novel of one unforgettable family, the orchard they've tended for generations, and a love story that transcends the ages.
Nomi Eve's lavishly imagined account begins in Palestine in 1837, with the tale of the irrepressible family matriach, Esther, who was lured by the smell of baking bread into an affair with the local baker. Esther passes on her passionate nature to her son, Eliezer, whose love for the forbidden Golda threatened to tear the family apart. And to her granddaughter, Avra the thief, a tiny wisp of a girl who thumbed her nose at her elders by swiping precious stones from the local bazaar-and grew to marry a man she met at the scene of a crime. At once epic and intimate, The Family Orchard is a rich historical tapestry of passion and tradition from a storyteller of beguiling power.

About this edition

• Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1860499236
• ISBN 13: 9781860499234
• Binding: Paperback