The Family Orchard

Eve, Nomi

ISBN 10: 0694524360 ISBN 13: 9780694524365

Publisher: HarperAudio, 2000

Synopsis

A magical, multigenerational novel spanning two hundred years in the life of an unforgettable family.

With the sweep of an epic and the intimacy of a deeply personal tale, The Family Orchard captures six generations of love affairs, legends and family secrets beginning in early nineteenth century Jerusalem and stretching to the present. Peopled with enchanting characters -- Esther, the family matriarch who follows the smell of rising bread into the arms of the baker who will become her lover; the twins, Zohar and Moshe, who run the walls of the Old City with their beloved grandfather; Miriam, whose intoxicating beauty inadvertently transforms a house of study into a place of pure carnal frustration -- and enveloped by a sense of mysticism and wonder, The Family Orchard is a strikingly original novel; a rich tapestry of Jewish life filled with reverence for family, history, and the natural world around us.

Preformed by Polly Draper and Fritz Weaver

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: HarperAudio
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0694524360
• ISBN 13: 9780694524365
• Binding: Audio Cassette