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Backyard
Backyard peels back the placid, Miracle-Gro-soaked sod of gardening to reveal a culture of yucca fetishes, monarda mutilations, and herbivore-induced hissy fits. In the shocking world of Backyard, garden club backstabbers use dull gardening trowels, and the little old lady with loppers could be. . . an iris murderer!
As Backyard unfolds, the news leaks out that Burdick’s PlantWorld is sponsoring a garden contest the likes of which the unassuming suburb of Livia has never seen. It quickly attracts the attention of Livia’s middle-aged gardening reprobates. They include a cowled spy, a witch who channels the spirit power of millions of dead flower souls, and a saboteur who’ll unleash a Mongol horde of half-starved rabbits on any garden if the price is right. Most threatening is resident gardening psychopath Dr. Phyllis Sproot. She’ll stop at nothing to maintain her dominance as Livia’s most eminent gardener.
Against these forbidding forces stands a determined couple—George and Nan Fremont. They vow in their quest for the first-place prize to turn their backyard into a suburban paradise of bursting summer blooms and trilling songbirds while blissfully sipping their favorite merlot and brandishing a butcher knife and genuine “Smokestack” Gaines baseball bat.
As Backyard unfolds, the news leaks out that Burdick’s PlantWorld is sponsoring a garden contest the likes of which the unassuming suburb of Livia has never seen. It quickly attracts the attention of Livia’s middle-aged gardening reprobates. They include a cowled spy, a witch who channels the spirit power of millions of dead flower souls, and a saboteur who’ll unleash a Mongol horde of half-starved rabbits on any garden if the price is right. Most threatening is resident gardening psychopath Dr. Phyllis Sproot. She’ll stop at nothing to maintain her dominance as Livia’s most eminent gardener.
Against these forbidding forces stands a determined couple—George and Nan Fremont. They vow in their quest for the first-place prize to turn their backyard into a suburban paradise of bursting summer blooms and trilling songbirds while blissfully sipping their favorite merlot and brandishing a butcher knife and genuine “Smokestack” Gaines baseball bat.
320 pages, Paperback
First published November 25, 2014
24 people are currently reading
537 people want to read
About the author
Norman Draper
4 books9 followersNorman Draper worked as a reporter for large, medium-size and small newspapers. He has lived in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Colorado, Mississippi and Minnesota. He left journalism in 2011 and worked as an editor for a state agency until 2014.
Norman has been writing fiction for most of his adult life. He's written four novels, the third of which--Backyard--was published in November 2014.The sequel--Front Yard--debuts September 29,2015. Norman is a serious baseball fan, but could never hit so much as a lukewarm heater,though he had a pretty decent glove.
He's also a gardener with just enough knowledge and skill to be dangerous.
Norman especially enjoys wearing his wife's floral print shirts and writing about himself in the third person.
Norman has been writing fiction for most of his adult life. He's written four novels, the third of which--Backyard--was published in November 2014.The sequel--Front Yard--debuts September 29,2015. Norman is a serious baseball fan, but could never hit so much as a lukewarm heater,though he had a pretty decent glove.
He's also a gardener with just enough knowledge and skill to be dangerous.
Norman especially enjoys wearing his wife's floral print shirts and writing about himself in the third person.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
February 17, 2016
: I’ll be honest- I had a hard time finishing this book. Partly because it’s hard to find a free Kindle at home, but mostly because I just can’t connect with this story and its inhabitants. The characters are shallow, the storyline is immature and the whole things just plods along. Errgh! I really don’t like being negative about something someone put so much work into. And it was a lot of work- the book is over 300 pages long and has numerous, copious, bounteous horticultural references. This whole thing would’ve been better with pictures and planting zone information.
November 3, 2015
If you had told me that I would be kept up late reading a book about gardening, I might have thought you had me confused with my father. My father had an engineer’s ability to find beauty and intrigue in the Burpee seed catalog. A self-taught, former city-boy gardener, he grew vegetables that fed and formed five children, and forced his wife to learn the fine arts of canning and preserving in the long stretches of free time our sports and scouts-filled days allowed her. He planted flowers, but for the most part their presence had something to do with the needs of the “real” plants that provided sustenance and satisfaction.
For me, then, Norman Draper’s story was a kind of coming home, in a rollicking mash-up of Crockett’s Victory Garden and Best in Show. If you can’t follow those references, you didn’t suffer through hundreds of hours of PBS programming like we did, but you also missed out on Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy’s hilarious send up of another competitive sport. I imagine Backyard to be how Guest would handle the local gardening mavens that people Draper’s small town suburb, Livia. They are a motley crew, with some more believable than others, and not really a whole bunch of sympathetic ones, but I think the distance this provides enables the reader to laugh more easily at the outrageous stunts they perpetrate in their quest for the almost ridiculous “title”.
I was not especially well-versed in competitive gardening, but I did have a glimpse of it in its amateur incarnation in my hometown. In our neighborhood, the latest techniques were discussed, attempted, bragged about, and then copied at will. Catalogs and seed packets abounded. The town of Livia seems to be much the same, though the lengths its gardeners will go to win are both despicable and hilarious. Draper seems at once cynical and sincere, but sends up the whole lot of them in his gently wicked tale. Given that he is a gardener himself, I trust that the sincere more often outweighed the cynical, but I cannot fault him for that.
For all of the farce presented here, I’m sure some of these tales were a case of truth being stranger than fiction; not so far off the mark of what could or has happened in this competitive landscape (pun intended, couldn’t help myself). Some of it works better than others, and you may find you need a nice glass of wine in hand before you settle into this charming story in order to stave off your own inner cynic, but it is a terrific way to spend a few lovely afternoons, feet up on a bench, overlooking a well-tended garden in bloom.
Front Yard, the sequel, is next.
For me, then, Norman Draper’s story was a kind of coming home, in a rollicking mash-up of Crockett’s Victory Garden and Best in Show. If you can’t follow those references, you didn’t suffer through hundreds of hours of PBS programming like we did, but you also missed out on Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy’s hilarious send up of another competitive sport. I imagine Backyard to be how Guest would handle the local gardening mavens that people Draper’s small town suburb, Livia. They are a motley crew, with some more believable than others, and not really a whole bunch of sympathetic ones, but I think the distance this provides enables the reader to laugh more easily at the outrageous stunts they perpetrate in their quest for the almost ridiculous “title”.
I was not especially well-versed in competitive gardening, but I did have a glimpse of it in its amateur incarnation in my hometown. In our neighborhood, the latest techniques were discussed, attempted, bragged about, and then copied at will. Catalogs and seed packets abounded. The town of Livia seems to be much the same, though the lengths its gardeners will go to win are both despicable and hilarious. Draper seems at once cynical and sincere, but sends up the whole lot of them in his gently wicked tale. Given that he is a gardener himself, I trust that the sincere more often outweighed the cynical, but I cannot fault him for that.
For all of the farce presented here, I’m sure some of these tales were a case of truth being stranger than fiction; not so far off the mark of what could or has happened in this competitive landscape (pun intended, couldn’t help myself). Some of it works better than others, and you may find you need a nice glass of wine in hand before you settle into this charming story in order to stave off your own inner cynic, but it is a terrific way to spend a few lovely afternoons, feet up on a bench, overlooking a well-tended garden in bloom.
Front Yard, the sequel, is next.
February 11, 2016
I am not even sure where to start with this book. It just felt so disconnected from reality and from magical realism. The characters are flat and unlikable. It's nearly impossible to relate to them unless you're an avid gardner or are a misogynist. The author spent more time describing a sexual fantasy of a never to return character than the flowers and plants that needed a lot of visual description help for a reader to see what he's trying to describe. There's a lot of plant names thrown about--the least he could have done is give us their colors aside from just plants everyone knows, like the hibiscus, which by the way was built up to play an important part and then didn't. The entire contest felt so disconnected because the story was more about the sabotaging and the partying and the random costuming than it was about the actual premise. This story felt like it was building up to nowhere because of all the numerous tangents, not subplots, it had. It's like the author grabbed a hold of a random list of parodies and slapped them together. You get the sabotage or espionage of a garden rather than a corporation, there's a witch's curse, there's a staple journalist because the author is a journalist, there's a climax of the Clue and Oscar element, where many characters converge and scare each other and it's put from so many points of view that it just becomes a confusing mess you want to rush through to get it over with, and then, for good measure, one character has to think briefly that it's the zombie apocalypse because everyone is in costume to hide their identities in order to sabotage.
This book tried too hard to be funny. I didn't chuckle once. I didn't feel pity or empathy for a single character. I couldn't even get angry because the protagonists and the antagonists were nearly identical in personality and obsession. There was nothing to like there.
This is not a read I'd give to anyone except a gardner...that you don't like.
This book tried too hard to be funny. I didn't chuckle once. I didn't feel pity or empathy for a single character. I couldn't even get angry because the protagonists and the antagonists were nearly identical in personality and obsession. There was nothing to like there.
This is not a read I'd give to anyone except a gardner...that you don't like.
July 5, 2015
George and Nan Fremont have entered the local gardening contest to compete for the grand prize of $200,000. Their family and close friends think they’re shoo-ins, but little did they know that their garden would be the target of multiple saboteurs and all their antics!
It sounds like a simple enough plot, but what makes this novel truly shine are the characters. Oh, the characters! There is the obsessive, relentless, self-proclaimed garden expert, Dr. Sproot, the spurned gardener-turned-witch, Edith, George and Nan Fremont themselves-whom I desperately wish I knew in real life- and many more! These riotous characters are sure to have you begging for more!
The only negative thing in this book, in my opinion, is some coarse language. While it’s not saturated with it, there is some. However, I thought this book was excellent! I got such a kick out of this story and all the zany characters. I literally laughed out loud multiple times throughout the book and found myself still chuckling a couple days after I finished the book. It’s the most entertaining book that I’ve read in several months!
If you’re looking for an easy-to-read book that’s entertaining and funny as all get-out, this is definitely the book for you. Plus, there’s the added bonus of the vivid descriptions of lush gardens that will inspire the gardener inside everyone. I highly recommend it!
(I received a digital copy of this book for review in exchange for a fair an honest review. I have since purchased a hard copy. All of the above opinions are entirely my own.)
It sounds like a simple enough plot, but what makes this novel truly shine are the characters. Oh, the characters! There is the obsessive, relentless, self-proclaimed garden expert, Dr. Sproot, the spurned gardener-turned-witch, Edith, George and Nan Fremont themselves-whom I desperately wish I knew in real life- and many more! These riotous characters are sure to have you begging for more!
The only negative thing in this book, in my opinion, is some coarse language. While it’s not saturated with it, there is some. However, I thought this book was excellent! I got such a kick out of this story and all the zany characters. I literally laughed out loud multiple times throughout the book and found myself still chuckling a couple days after I finished the book. It’s the most entertaining book that I’ve read in several months!
If you’re looking for an easy-to-read book that’s entertaining and funny as all get-out, this is definitely the book for you. Plus, there’s the added bonus of the vivid descriptions of lush gardens that will inspire the gardener inside everyone. I highly recommend it!
(I received a digital copy of this book for review in exchange for a fair an honest review. I have since purchased a hard copy. All of the above opinions are entirely my own.)
September 2, 2015
This is a book that I picked up in my continuing search for a book group worthy selection. It looked to be a rollicking, good-time book, comically portraying a gardening contest in the suburbs. I am a gardener, so I thought it looked interesting.
For the most part, I enjoyed the story. There were parts were and I laughed out loud at the insane antics of the crazy, obsessed Doc Phil. As the story became more insane and raced to a frantic finish, I was glued to the pages, even though I pretty much knew how it would turn out.
It isn't exactly book group worthy, but it is fun. I would give it four stars, but I have to knock off a couple of points for moderate cursing, and sexual references. Not exactly squeaky clean, but if you can overlook those things, it's not a bad book.
For the most part, I enjoyed the story. There were parts were and I laughed out loud at the insane antics of the crazy, obsessed Doc Phil. As the story became more insane and raced to a frantic finish, I was glued to the pages, even though I pretty much knew how it would turn out.
It isn't exactly book group worthy, but it is fun. I would give it four stars, but I have to knock off a couple of points for moderate cursing, and sexual references. Not exactly squeaky clean, but if you can overlook those things, it's not a bad book.
March 12, 2018
An easy to read story about a town where the local garden shop decides to boost business by offering a prize to the best garden. Every gardener in town is working like crazy to make sure they have the best garden at judging time. Dr. Sproot, Marta P. and Nan and George Fremont are just three of the gardeners involved. But they aren't just trying to grow their own gardens. As with any large prize there is some foul play going on as well. With some comedy and one truly laugh out loud scene, this is a fun book, good for a summer read.
November 17, 2015
Meh. I thought this would be an entertaining read, but the characters were silly to the point of unbelief it was hard to get engaged in the story.
April 22, 2022
2.5 stars, on the fence about rounding up to 3 because the parts I liked, I REALLY liked! This book is about a neighborhood gardening competition and all of the antics that the neighbors are up to in order to win. I really enjoyed reading about the gardens and meeting the quirky neighbors. However, the book really didn't have much of a climax and some of the dialogue was confusing. I was drawn to the book purely because of the cover, enjoyed it because of the gardens and funny characters but wouldn't recommend if you are looking for a rock solid storyline.
April 24, 2016
This book was ok. It was supposed to be quite funny, but it was not as humorous as I wanted it to be. There were definitely some very funny moments, but overall it failed to be as funny as the author was trying to make it. Also, a lot of the humor was quite crass. I would have appreciated the book more if I was a gardener, but I have only planted a few flowers in my entire life, so I was not able to fully grasp all of the plant/gardening references.
I did find the dynamics between the neighbors and other interpersonal relationships to be funny at times, and interesting. The relationship between the Fremonts (main characters in the book) and their children was disturbingly humorous. The plot moved quite slowly at times, but kept my interest enough for me to keep reading.
Overall, I probably would only recommend this book to someone who is an avid gardener with an irreverent sense of humor.
I did find the dynamics between the neighbors and other interpersonal relationships to be funny at times, and interesting. The relationship between the Fremonts (main characters in the book) and their children was disturbingly humorous. The plot moved quite slowly at times, but kept my interest enough for me to keep reading.
Overall, I probably would only recommend this book to someone who is an avid gardener with an irreverent sense of humor.
November 3, 2014
NOTE: I RECEIVED A COPY OF THIS ARC THROUGH NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
I tried, I really did but I couldn't finish this. I even walked away from it for a week thinking that it would be different when I got back to it, but no, it wasn't. I didn't like the characters or the dialogue between them .....well, I think I stopped reading when one character asked the other if she was a "fraidy cat."
I did however, enjoy envisioning all the flowers and gardens that everyone but because I didn't finish the book, I didn't get to find out who won the Burdick Plantworld's Best Yard Contest. Oh well. I'm sure that there will be other readers out there that love it.
I tried, I really did but I couldn't finish this. I even walked away from it for a week thinking that it would be different when I got back to it, but no, it wasn't. I didn't like the characters or the dialogue between them .....well, I think I stopped reading when one character asked the other if she was a "fraidy cat."
I did however, enjoy envisioning all the flowers and gardens that everyone but because I didn't finish the book, I didn't get to find out who won the Burdick Plantworld's Best Yard Contest. Oh well. I'm sure that there will be other readers out there that love it.
July 18, 2015
I LOVE gardening and I so wanted to love this book more than I did. The gardening references were interesting but just too much other "stuff" to sort through. From too many unlikeable characters to kids (teens) that added nothing to the plot, it took me forever to finish. I did want to know who won the contest so I read on.
Some parts were quite funny and once you realize you are reading a madcap comedy it gets a little better but still not my favorite. Sorry Mr. Draper. Beauiful cover design though!
Some parts were quite funny and once you realize you are reading a madcap comedy it gets a little better but still not my favorite. Sorry Mr. Draper. Beauiful cover design though!
September 10, 2015
The aspect of the book that was most enjoyable was how utterly serious some of these people were about their flower gardens. Parts of it were just too unrealistic to be true, so that's what made them funny. I love gardening, but I struggle with flowers so that made the book seem true to me. It was an enjoyable read, but can't say I would recommend it to anyone, but it does have some clever lines in it.
April 15, 2020
So this is a tale of a great story ruined by extraneous scenes and details that only served to detract from an otherwise great story. There was no logical reasoning for S&M scene or several scenes of overly lewd male ogling female anatomy. The gardening story was quite brilliant on it's own without the added "detail" that only detracted from the story.
Kensington is normally a stellar publishing and editorial house, they failed on this account.
Kensington is normally a stellar publishing and editorial house, they failed on this account.
January 31, 2018
I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. Dr. Sproot was completely awful, the other characters were flat. I expected the overall writing to be better being as the author had been a newspaper journalist for many years. The subjects of a gardening contest and vengeful gardeners was interesting however the book didn’t live up to it. A slow, mostly boring read. 2 Stars
August 19, 2015
I really had a hard time getting into this book. I didn't like the cataloging of plants in the yards and the characters seemed so unlikeable. I did learn to like the Fremonts and Marta about half way thru and there was a scene that was hilarious, so I gave it 2 stars.
February 12, 2015
Heavens above! I can't believe I read this book. Picked it up at Sam's .... Wondering about their book buyer.
February 16, 2015
Fun light read about a beautiful backyard contest in a small upper midwest town. Hilarious. Fun characters.
March 19, 2015
Beginning was horribly slow, but the last half was great fun.
August 14, 2015
Tons of gardening references. The characters were compelling.
August 13, 2017
I'm still not really sure what this was all about.
August 22, 2018
It sounded interesting but took forever to read, the story just plodded along.
July 4, 2021
I’m not sure what the point of this book was at all. I’m surprised I finished it. Very outlandish.
May 7, 2019
As a Gardener I may know a few Plant Obsessed People. I could definitely identify with Crazy Talk To Plants People. Lots of witty dialogue. This is a book for Gardeners. It did however take me almost 6 weeks to read this book. Partly because it's one busiest times of the year in the garden. Too much to do! I kept laying it aside because a New Release or Library Hold would come in. Towards last third of the book I really wanted to know what happens or maybe I was just tired of it on my nightstand. I understand the Gardener vs Bunny Horde dilemma but a couple times it turns a bit unsettling. I have good bunnies in my yard. Gracie and Bun-Bum are well behaved. Nice mention of Master Gardener in Acknowledgments.
October 3, 2023
More like 1 1/2 stars. Parts of this book were amusing and most of the gardening/plant references were correct, but most of the story and characters were outrageous caricatures. And in every chapter, the author would have one of these characters use a very obscure word. I’m fairly well read and feel I have a good vocabulary but I had to look up words at least ten times to decipher their meanings. I think the author used a thesaurus hoping to make the book more interesting? It didn’t work. I continued to read the book mostly to see how much nuttier the story was going to get and ,boy, did it!
October 28, 2016
I found this book to be a bit of fun fluff. As a gardener, I enjoyed reading the descriptions of flower beds and flower choices. Some reviews said this would have been better with photos of flowers so the reader would know what the author was talking about. That might be true, but is not necessary. It's still a fun garden romp.
December 30, 2017
For the most part I liked this book and some of the characters. I like the gardening fanatic angle of the story, however, it goes off the rails more than once. i.e. There was no need to introduce a town drunk into the story.
May 3, 2018
An intriguing premise, but I just didn't care about any of the characters. I honestly can't identify what about the storytelling didn't work for me. I hope others liked it better.
March 23, 2017
Who knew a story about a backyard gardening competition would be so snarky and hilarious? This was a fun read.
July 22, 2018
Easy book to read for the summer. Fairly predictable.
August 16, 2021
Didn't like the characters, though with the storyline, this sounded like a really good read. It just never caught my interest. The characters are all very self-involved, selfish, and unlikable.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews