A beautifully crafted story of a Jewish family, reaching back five generations. Using births, deaths and family legends, here are stories of how people meet and fall in love, of family secrets and tragedies, of sex and marriage.
Yochanan and his wife Esther who lived happily despite Esther's long-time affair with the local baker; Avra who has a penchant for stealing (and returning) who marries Shimon, an immigrant from Russia; Miriam, a child of Eastern Europe who sews her family's futures into her cloth. Shyly sexy and funny, always rooted in the domestic and the familiar, this is an enchanting, complex novel which draws on the voices of many generations from far and wide, reaching across the Diaspora - Israel, Europe and America.
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The novel opens in 1837 when Esther Herschell, the beautiful granddaughter of the chief rabbi of the British Empire, marries the learned eastern European Rabbi Yochanan Schine, and the young couple takes up residence in a "half-grand, half-decrepit" house in Jerusalem. Within paragraphs Esther embarks on a delirious love affair with a handsome young baker and Yochanan finds out about it, which mysteriously only heightens the married couple's pleasure in each other. So commences a narrative driven by sexual undercurrents, unexpected emotional reactions and the spell of Jerusalem with its "twists, turns, bakers and twin arcane whispers of piety and perversity."
Eve moves the family stories along briskly, and in the twinkling of an eye World War I has broken out, and Avra Schine, Esther and Yochanan's light-fingered granddaughter, is stealing bullets from the Turkish Army to supply daring Jewish spies. Avra bears handsome, blue-eyed identical twin sons, Moshe and Zohar, who come of age during the years of struggle and tragedy that preceded Israeli independence. As the generations revolve, Eve filters the terrible saga of mid-20th century Jewish history through the lives of the Schine/Sepher family--their marriages and deaths, dreams and desires, and the orchard that anchors each generation to the town of Petach Tikvah.
Nomi Eve has drunk deep from the wells of South American magic realists like Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende and Yiddish fabulists and folk writers like Shalom Aleichem and IB Singer. But never do her teachers and masters overpower her own voice, a voice at once clear and resonant, earthy and ethereal. The Family Orchard is not a perfect work of art--but then perfection is not really the point here. It is, however, a deeply moving and highly accomplished novel, and an astonishingly impressive debut. --David Laskin, Amazon.com
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The Family Orchard This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780316856942
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. All orders are dispatched the following working day from our UK warehouse. Established in 2004, we have over 500,000 books in stock. No quibble refund if not completely satisfied. Seller Inventory # mon0006588865
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780316856942
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Trade Paperback. Trade Paperback. They left Eastern Europe for Israel and emerged, six generations later, in Ameirca: Yoachanan and his wife Esther, who loved lon and happily despite Esther's affair with the local baker; her granddaughter, Avra the thief; Mirian, a grenade-throwing seamstress who sewed her family destinies into her cloth; the twins Zohar and Moshe, who ran across the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem as boys and who, as men, faced a tragedy that would haunt their family for generations to come; and Eliezer's American-born daughter, who would one day take his stories and cast a spell of her own. Shylt sexy and often droll, firmly rooted in the everyday business of living, the author's debut novel is about the sorrow of immigrants and the joy of pioneers; the secrets that bind families together and the legends that sustain them. Illustrations. 316 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.). Seller Inventory # 075655
Book Description Trade Paperback. Condition: Very Good. First Trade. Trade Paperback. 314 pages. *** PUBLISHING DETAILS: Little, Brown, UK, 2001. First Trade. *** CONDITION: This book is in very good condition. Tanned pages. Reading creases to spine. *** Quantity Available: 1. Category: Fiction; Historical; ISBN: 0316856940. ISBN/EAN: 9780316856942. Inventory No: 13020415. The photo of this book is of the actual book for sale. Seller Inventory # 13020415
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Bookshop stamp on half title. Seller Inventory # 20597391
Book Description Condition: Fine. Englisch. Seller Inventory # 3800902