Orchard On Fire: A Novel

by Shena Mackay

Overview

Set in the small English village of Stonebridge, the Orchard on Fire tells the story of eight-year-old April Harlency's coming-of-age in a place where the charm of the local landscape contrasts sharply with the predjuices and vagaries of the adult world. When April encounters the red-haired, energetic Ruby Richards, the two girls become fast friends. Together, they abandon the physical and mental abuse forced on them by adults in their lives and transform an abandoned railway car in an orchard into their secret hideaway, an idyllic camp of shared dreams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780156005326
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/15/1997
Series:	Harvest Book Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

"Enthralling from the first page to the last...celebrates love and friendship and the resilinece of children."-The Boston Globe
"A wonderous novel that will birth emotions anew, age them with experience and tinge them with an aching melancholy." -The Washington Post
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From the Publisher

It's always a puzzle when a writer as talented as Londoner Shena Mackay remains virtually unknown on these shores, but her comparative obscurity here, despite rave reviews for A Bowl of Cherries and her short-story collection, Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags, may be dispelled with the publication of this finely wrought and touching novel. Narrator April Harlency looks back at the year 1953, when she was eight years old and had just moved to Stonebridge, in Kent, where her parents became proprietors of The Copper Kettle tearoom. April speedily becomes best friends with flame-haired Ruby Richards, daughter of the publicans who run the local saloon. The girls share a passion for reading, and for their secret sanctuary, an abandoned railway car hidden in an orchard. Despite their closeness, however, April can't bring herself to talk about the sexual molestation she endures from elderly Mr. Greenridge, who seems so kind and generous that April's oblivious parents chide her when she tries to stay out of his way. Nor does Ruby talk about her own father's physical abuse. Mackay brilliantly captures a child's voice and view of the world, the unspoken misapprehensions, fears and terrorssome imaginary, some well foundedthat haunt April's dreams. Her prose a marvel of precise, evocative detail and almost sensual intensity, she shadows her gently humorous depiction of the ordinary daily life of a childschool, a Christmas pageant, the birth of April's brotherwith the undertow of anxiety in April's mind. Ironically, while April seems the most seriously threatened by creepy Mr. Greenridge's increasingly bold advances, it is Ruby whose life undergoes a wrenching change. The ending, which involves a tombstone inscription that jolts both April and the reader, would be trite in other hands, but Mackay reworks a familiar fictional device into something poignant and true. The throb of real life among blue-collar families animates this subtle and compassionate story, as does Mackay's insight into a child's view of the world. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Life in 1950s England, as seen through the sharp and funny filter of eight-year-old April Harlency, is subject to misunderstandings and distortion. When her family moves to the village of Stonebridge, hoping to improve their lot by taking over the Copper Kettle Tearoom, April is befriended by red-headed Ruby Richards. Childhood rituals involving secret calls and an orchard hiding place sustain the friendship but fail to protect them from harm. April falls prey to the insidious advances of Mr. Greenridge, whose bonhomie and patronage of the struggling tearoom blind her well-meaning parents to his true nature. Ruby suffers a more dire fate as the victim of abuse at the hands of her hard-drinking father. As rumors of an unknown molester sweep the village, people are slow to recognize the villains closer at hand. With an established reputation in her native Britain, Mackay (Dreams of Dead Women, LJ 8/94) deserves a wider American audience for this hauntingly perceptive coming-of-age story.Barbara Love, Kingston P.L., Ontario

Library Journal