The Orchard

by Theresa Weir

This book is a memoir, written by a an author who seems to have had quite good success as a romance writer.

I picked the book up because I thought it was a book I heard reviewed on CBC, but it was The Orchardist, that I had heard about.

This book tells the story of the author's very tragic life.  Her mother and father divorced when she was young and her mother went through numerous boyfriends after that.  She didn't really want the two children she had and eventually tries to send her daughter to a girl's home, from which she runs away.  The author then lives in a drug house for a while and is abused by men she meets.  She finally goes to stay with an uncle who went to prison for abetting a murderer.  He is running a greasy spoon restaurant.  She works for him for room and board and sleeps on a mattress in the back room.

One day a young local farmer comes in.  He is handsome and she stops to talk with him.  Her uncle tells her to stay away from as his family is cursed... lots of deaths in the family.  She and the young man start going on picnics and walks in the woods and discover a mutual love of drawing.  The farmer asks her to marry him and she doesn't hesitate to say yes.  They get married and move into a small house on the farm property.  His parents don't like her and she finds her husband isn't as attentive nor affectionate as he was before they got married.  He is out late at night and when he comes home he isn't hungry.  She is shocked and hurt when she finds out that he goes to eat supper with his parents.  She fills her lonlieness by trying to write fiction.  She eventually finds a publisher for her book and develops a successful career as a writer.

Her husband is trying to breed a new type of apple.  The farm specializes in apples including making cider.  The family uses a lot of chemical sprays on the trees.  Sadly the man's trees when they finally bear fruit are infested with worms and he destroys all he trees.  The couple eventually have two children and have a "normal" life compared to the family lives they were raised in.

Then her husband's father dies of cancer, and a few years later her husband is diagnosed with cancer and he dies too.  The mother-in-law accuses him of getting cancer so he doesn't have to run the farm.When her husband dies the woman immediately gathers up her children and goes far away from the farm.
Fortunately she has money from her success as an author to make the move.  If it wasn't a true story it would be hard to believe that the relationships would be so weird as they are in this book.