The Walled Orchard

by Tom Holt

Overview

'Read THE WALLED ORCHARD so you can tell your descendants, 'I was there when the historical novel started holding its head up with the rest of literature''. - WASHINGTON POST

'This book is a hilarious yet well-researached historical novel.' - HISTORICAL NOVEL REVIEW

The hero is Eupolis, weary, cynical and believing only in comedy. The heroine is Athens, at the height of her schizophrenic glory. A startling mixture of comedy and tragedy, THE WALLED ORCHARD is the poignant, charming story of their turbulent relationship.

With unforgettable characters and a powerful and moving story, THE WALLED ORCHARD is a wonderful evocation of life in Ancient Greece in the fifth century BC.

Books by Tom Holt:

Walled Orchard Series
Goatsong
The Walled Orchard

J.W. Wells & Co. Series
The Portable Door
In Your Dreams
Earth, Air, Fire and Custard
You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps
The Better Mousetrap
May Contain Traces of Magic
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages

YouSpace Series
Doughnut
When It's A Jar
The Outsorcerer's Apprentice
The Good, the Bad and the Smug

Novels
Expecting Someone Taller
Who's Afraid of Beowulf
Flying Dutch
Ye Gods!
Overtime
Here Comes the Sun
Grailblazers
Faust Among Equals
Odds and Gods
Djinn Rummy
My Hero
Paint your Dragon
Open Sesame
Wish you Were Here
Alexander at World's End
Only Human
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Olympiad
Valhalla
Nothing But Blue Skies
Falling Sideways
Little People
Song for Nero
Meadowland
Barking
Blonde Bombshell
The Management Style of the Supreme Beings
An Orc on the Wild Side

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748113514
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date:	10/01/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	775,771
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Tom Holt is the acclaimed author of a bestselling series of comic fantasy and historical novels. He lives in Chard, Somerset.
Tom Holt was born in London in 1961. At Oxford he studied bar billiards, ancient Greek agriculture and the care and feeding of small, temperamental Japanese motorcycle engines. These interests led him, perhaps inevitably, to qualify as a solicitor and emigrate to Somerset, where he specialised in death and taxes for seven years before going straight in 1995. He lives in Chard, Somerset, with his wife and daughter. He also writes as K. J. Parker.

Editorial Reviews

Poor comic dramatist Eupolis has promised the god Dionysus that he'll look after his arch-rival and fellow soldier, the playwright Aristophanes. As they embark on the invasion of Sicily, the Peloponnesian War turns into a ``fever-stricken slaughterhouse''; upon returning to his native Athens, Eupolis is falsely accused of treason and blasphemy. The Fates are perverse and the gods reckless in this wonderfully down-to-earth re-creation of Greece in the fifth century B.C., a sequel to Goatsong. With irreverent wit and hindsight, Holt takes the classical world off its pedestal, revealing the Greek psyche to be an amalgam of logic and irrationality, passion and superstition, and fear. Eupolis, sane and cynical, consults with Socrates; bickers with his wife, Phaedra; and plans his own legal defense while a vulnerable, corrupt democracy ineluctably slides toward oligarchy. In this dark ``autobiography,'' readers are reminded that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this second volume of the ``Walled Orchard'' series, Eupolis, Athenian comic playwright and rival of Aristophanes, continues relating the story he began in Goatsong ( LJ 2/1/90). Joining the ill-fated expedition to Sicily, Eupolis is one of the few combatants to escape from the walled orchard where the troops have taken refuge. Once back in Athens, he is accused of toppling statues of Hermes before the army sailed and is tried for treason. After his acquittal, he writes his final play, The Demes , a satirical look at Athens and its problems. As in Goatsong , the narrator's tone is conversational, with self-deprecating humor. His description conveys impressions of fighting and flight in Sicily and of being on trial in 5th century Athens. Readers interested in historical fiction as related by a minor Athenian poet will find this version amusing and interesting as well as thought-provoking. Recommended.-- Ellen Kaye Stoppel, Drake Univ. Law Lib., Des Moines

Library Journal