The Wild Cherry Tree: Halibut Jones; the Wild Cherry Tree; Some Other Spring; the World Upside-Down; How Vainly Men Themselves Amaze; the First Day of . Same Time, Same Place; the Middle of Nowhere

Bates, H. E.

ISBN 10: 0140033432 / ISBN 13: 9780140033434

Published by Penguin, 1971

About this Item

The Wild Cherry Tree gathers a sequence of finely observed short stories that move between rural life, quiet emotional turning points, and the strange, often humorous ways people navigate change. Across pieces such as Halibut Jones, Some Other Spring, and The World Upside-Down, the author blends gentle irony with moments of poignancy, revealing characters caught between memory, desire, and the pull of the everyday. The collectionâ s mix of pastoral detail, subtle wit, and understated drama gives each story its own distinct mood while maintaining a unifying tone of reflective humanity. A desirable volume for collectors of mid-century British short fiction, quiet-literary storytelling, and themed story cycles.

Seller Inventory # mon0001644889

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Wild Cherry Tree: Halibut Jones; the Wild Cherry Tree; Some Other Spring; the World Upside-Down; How Vainly Men Themselves Amaze; the First Day of . Same Time, Same Place; the Middle of Nowhere
• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication Date: 1971
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140033432
• ISBN 13: 9780140033434
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

First published in 1968, The Wild Cherry Tree is a late collection of ten tales including comic vignettes, a humorous celebration of the sensual life, and several explorations of love, loneliness, and problematic relationships.'The Wild Cherry Tree' sees the wife of a pig-farmer who dresses like a 'shabby, straddling scarecrow' as she tends her pigs by day, but, alone in the evenings, adorns herself in exotic clothes and jewels without leaving the house. That is until one day, when she has to deal with the consequences.'Same Time, Same Place' follows an impoverished spinster and a lonely bachelor who become friends, but when he drunkenly and clumsily proposes to her she avoids him, denying herself 'the possibility of friendship with a man who genuinely likes her.''The First Day of Christmas' observes a man with his lover on a festive evening out, surrounded by fellow drinkers and full of saucy dialogue, who is torn between asking her hand and burying his grief in drink.'The Black Magnolia' celebrates the sensual life in a farce involving two voluptuous and liberated women and a repressed, tee-total bachelor.The bonus story 'A Waddler' is Bates's first published story, and is a village sketch with colourful dialogue. It follows a man as he deals with the death of his overly critical wife, as he is conversely complimented by a fellow widow on carrying his grief so well.