“Last fall I was eating wild apples, and a close friend of mine was slowly dying. I was thinking a lot about death and friendship, and overtop of that was the sweet, dense taste of the White Winter Pearmain.”
Thus begins Helen Humphreys’ latest meditation on the natural world and our human intersection with it. The Ghost Orchard is ostensibly about apples, about the great breadth of varieties we once enjoyed, narrowed now to a paltry, grocery-store handful. There is an elegiac tone to it, a recognition of loss, but at the same time it is a lusty savouring of fruit, of life, of the miracle of friendship, of the endurance of nature and art.
I can hardly wait to read this!
Read more about The Ghost Orchard
Here are my reviews of other books by Humphreys: Wild Dogs, The Lost Garden, Coventry, The Frozen Thames and perhaps my favourite The Evening Chorus.
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