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The Orchard: A Novel
From the bestselling author of The Dog Stars and The River, the story of a young girl coming of age among the streams and mountains of southern Vermont—an unforgettable tale of love, friendship, loss, and the enduring power of nature.
Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. One of the world’s most renowned translators of poetry from China’s Tang dynasty, Hayley walked away from her career and her drug-addicted husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things—including their exuberant Bernese mountain mutt, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith—precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader—considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here.
Season after season, it is the three of them—mother, daughter, and dog—until the sunny March day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door. Rose is an artist and kindred spirit whose unexpected friendship upends Hayley and Frith’s solitary existence. Rosie takes the edge off the worries of day-to-day survival and encourages the playful aspects of living in nature: fishing, picnics, swimming in a quarry. Frith thrives under the loving care of Hayley and Rosie and, with a child’s innocence, assumes their happiness will last forever. Instead, their lives are shattered by unexpected tragedy and Frith must come to terms with heartbreak and fear.
Peter Heller is unique in his ability to capture the beauty and nuance of the natural world and its pull on women and men. In The Orchard, he pairs evocative storytelling with jewel-like poems—Hayley’s translations of her most beloved Tang poet, Li Xue—that echo Hayley and Frith’s life in the wilderness and tell their own tale of mother and daughter. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard examines the fragility of childhood, motherhood, romantic love, and friendship, and celebrates the enduring solace of nature.
Hayley and her seven-year-old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. One of the world’s most renowned translators of poetry from China’s Tang dynasty, Hayley walked away from her career and her drug-addicted husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated not by ambition-fueled academics but by hawks, beavers, and other wild things—including their exuberant Bernese mountain mutt, Bear. They get by on what little they earn from their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup they make from their maple trees. Frith—precocious, homeschooled, and a voracious reader—considers herself queen of this backwoods paradise. She is too young to understand the pain and regret that have followed her mother here.
Season after season, it is the three of them—mother, daughter, and dog—until the sunny March day when Rose Lattimore appears at their door. Rose is an artist and kindred spirit whose unexpected friendship upends Hayley and Frith’s solitary existence. Rosie takes the edge off the worries of day-to-day survival and encourages the playful aspects of living in nature: fishing, picnics, swimming in a quarry. Frith thrives under the loving care of Hayley and Rosie and, with a child’s innocence, assumes their happiness will last forever. Instead, their lives are shattered by unexpected tragedy and Frith must come to terms with heartbreak and fear.
Peter Heller is unique in his ability to capture the beauty and nuance of the natural world and its pull on women and men. In The Orchard, he pairs evocative storytelling with jewel-like poems—Hayley’s translations of her most beloved Tang poet, Li Xue—that echo Hayley and Frith’s life in the wilderness and tell their own tale of mother and daughter. By turns joyful and searing, The Orchard examines the fragility of childhood, motherhood, romantic love, and friendship, and celebrates the enduring solace of nature.
256 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2019
360 people are currently reading
7623 people want to read
About the author
Peter Heller
37 books3,579 followersThere is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Peter Heller holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He is also the author of several nonfiction books, including Kook, The Whale Warriors, and Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
Peter Heller holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He is also the author of several nonfiction books, including Kook, The Whale Warriors, and Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 254 reviews
December 21, 2025
There is a reason why Peter Heller is one of my favorite contemporary authors, but somehow, this beautiful novel published in 2019 has eluded me. And this was such an emotional journey in the quiet hills of the Vermont Green Mountains. For it is here that Hayley and her seven-year old daughter, Frith, live in a rustic cabin with no electricity. Haley is a renowned translator of poets from the Tang Dynasty. Hayley walked away from her career at a Denver university and her heroin-addicted husband to raise Frith alone in a land populated by beavers, hawks and other wild things as they eak out a living in their overgrown apple orchard and the syrup made from their maple trees.
It is in the Prologue that we witness Frith begin to examine the contents of a small maple chest that has served as a lamp stand for many years in the corner of her library. And Frith laments that she has delayed opening the file for over two decades. But she now knows, pregnant herself, that she must open the chest. Among many other sentimental items, there is the very first poem, The Orchard. She could see that her mother loved Li Xue because she wrote of beauty and heartbreak and friendship in equal measure, and touched them all with grace.
The Orchard examines the fragility of childhood, motherhood, romantic love, and friendship amid the enduring solace of nature. Reading Peter Heller’s prose is literary and poetic magic. And in this book there is the beautiful poetry of her most loved translations of her beloved Tang poet, Li Xue, that uncannily echo Hayley and Frith’s life in the wilderness as they capture their own tale of mother and daughter. The Orchard was an absolutely beautiful book that will leave me pondering it for some time to come.
It is in the Prologue that we witness Frith begin to examine the contents of a small maple chest that has served as a lamp stand for many years in the corner of her library. And Frith laments that she has delayed opening the file for over two decades. But she now knows, pregnant herself, that she must open the chest. Among many other sentimental items, there is the very first poem, The Orchard. She could see that her mother loved Li Xue because she wrote of beauty and heartbreak and friendship in equal measure, and touched them all with grace.
“It doesn’t matter. Who cares? As Li Xue possibly said. The two women, across twelve centuries, were going through similar loss and sharing the language.”
“Truth may be beauty, but it is also heartbreak. That is certain. Because the truest thing, or at least the most certain, is that we will eventually lose everything.”
“I’ve thought about that often. It’s what Hayley gave to me, and Li Xue gave to her; That we are of this earth. All of us. That if we stay close to her, and to what we truly love, we will be okay.”
The Orchard examines the fragility of childhood, motherhood, romantic love, and friendship amid the enduring solace of nature. Reading Peter Heller’s prose is literary and poetic magic. And in this book there is the beautiful poetry of her most loved translations of her beloved Tang poet, Li Xue, that uncannily echo Hayley and Frith’s life in the wilderness as they capture their own tale of mother and daughter. The Orchard was an absolutely beautiful book that will leave me pondering it for some time to come.
December 11, 2019
Perhaps between Thanksgiving and Christmas is not the time to try to read this book. I'm a Heller fan, but I found this disappointing. I didn't feel the narrator made enough of a distinction between Frith's story now and as a child, so I was frequently at sea for the first few minutes after the change. Lovely language and descriptions, rich characterizations.
August 17, 2022
An absolutely beautifully written book and my first 5 star in awhile. I love this author and everything he’s written. This book may be his best.
October 19, 2023
This is a beautifully written story with prose as poetic as the translations of ancient Chinese poems that are woven throughout. Primary focus is on a mother /daughter relationship- the mother having moved to a kerosene lit cabin deep in the Vermont woods to eke out a living for her and her daughter from the land. Told from the daughter Frith’s point of view, it reads like a tender memoir of an idyllic childhood. As expected from Peter Heller, the descriptions of their natural setting are richly magnificent. After having read his suspense filled book The River, I was surprised by the quiet nature of this story. It starts out slowly, but builds to a deeply emotional climax. It’s all about love - of family, of friendship, of work that is fulfilling, of reliance on the kindness of strangers, of nature and of literature. This is not a book for anyone looking for an action packed adventure within the beauty of the natural world. Instead, it is a deeply emotional exploration of the human condition with all its joys and sorrows.
July 31, 2023
My experience with this book a second time has left me in even greater awe of Peter Heller. Prose and poetry of extraordinary beauty, characters with depth and heart and a setting beyond compare combine to create a sublime reading experience.
July 31, 2023
My experience with this book a second time has left me in even greater awe of Peter Heller. Prose and poetry of extraordinary beauty, characters with depth and heart and a setting beyond compare combine to create a sublime reading experience.
unable-to-finish
December 7, 2025 I listened to this until I couldn't take the narrator's irritating voice anymore. Arrggghh. I am a Peter Heller completist so I'm sure I'll read it in print eventually.
January 28, 2026
This really clicked with me at this moment in time and was a 5 star reading experience even though I recognize issues that normally would be story deal breakers . . .
Second novel I’ve read by Heller; The Last Ranger was both more typical of Heller’s novels and “rang truer” than The Orchard. But, no matter. The Orchard is a dual time line, narrator (Frith) tells it from both the standpoint of a young girl growing up in a cabin in the beautiful woods of Vermont and of an adult, an Amherst professor of literature, expecting her first child. The narrator’s mother, Hayley, is a refugee from academic life, a well known translator of an (imaginary) Chinese woman poet of the 8th century. Neighbor, Rosie, a fiber artist, also plays a big part, as does the setting (strong sense of place always important to me and Heller does this extremely well). The descriptions of the pond, with its one beaver, the nearby mountain with is granite slabs, and the overgrown apple orchard with the apple blossoms drifting down in the wind are lovely.
My favorite passage: “ there’s a time in these woods, on these hills, when walking, the trails is like swimming through honey. The color, not the viscosity. It may be all the beach trees, and ash, and birch, all the trees that softened to yellows early, before the onslaught of the more brilliant colors. Some of the hedges and underbrush were already turning too. The sumac were reddening. But the prevailing mood was something golden.”
I really enjoyed the reflections on the art of translating and poetry, on beauty. The mention of several poets, especially W.S. Merwin, sent me down rabbit holes to learn more. I wish the medieval Chinese woman poet could have been real but the unlikely outline of her life, with its independence and connection to the natural world, seemed a vehicle for reflections on Hayley’s own life and the legacy she wanted to leave her daughter.
Beautiful, clear language, short chapters and good text layout made the book especially easy to read. Interesting that this book is set in New England (although there is a short, magical visit to Jackson Hole) and that the main characters are all female — not usual for Heller. Sorry to have the book end . . .
Second novel I’ve read by Heller; The Last Ranger was both more typical of Heller’s novels and “rang truer” than The Orchard. But, no matter. The Orchard is a dual time line, narrator (Frith) tells it from both the standpoint of a young girl growing up in a cabin in the beautiful woods of Vermont and of an adult, an Amherst professor of literature, expecting her first child. The narrator’s mother, Hayley, is a refugee from academic life, a well known translator of an (imaginary) Chinese woman poet of the 8th century. Neighbor, Rosie, a fiber artist, also plays a big part, as does the setting (strong sense of place always important to me and Heller does this extremely well). The descriptions of the pond, with its one beaver, the nearby mountain with is granite slabs, and the overgrown apple orchard with the apple blossoms drifting down in the wind are lovely.
My favorite passage: “ there’s a time in these woods, on these hills, when walking, the trails is like swimming through honey. The color, not the viscosity. It may be all the beach trees, and ash, and birch, all the trees that softened to yellows early, before the onslaught of the more brilliant colors. Some of the hedges and underbrush were already turning too. The sumac were reddening. But the prevailing mood was something golden.”
I really enjoyed the reflections on the art of translating and poetry, on beauty. The mention of several poets, especially W.S. Merwin, sent me down rabbit holes to learn more. I wish the medieval Chinese woman poet could have been real but the unlikely outline of her life, with its independence and connection to the natural world, seemed a vehicle for reflections on Hayley’s own life and the legacy she wanted to leave her daughter.
Beautiful, clear language, short chapters and good text layout made the book especially easy to read. Interesting that this book is set in New England (although there is a short, magical visit to Jackson Hole) and that the main characters are all female — not usual for Heller. Sorry to have the book end . . .
January 4, 2026
Hayley is raising her daughter Frith alone off the grid until a woman named Rose shows up and provides some extra help and fun to their lives.
I like the way Peter Heller tells a story, but this one missed the mark for me. Sometimes you just start a book and it’s the wrong book at the wrong time. This was definitely not the case here. I was just not interested in anything happening in this story. It was not compelling, it dragged on, and I just kept pushing through. I’m disappointed because I wanted to love this one.
I like the way Peter Heller tells a story, but this one missed the mark for me. Sometimes you just start a book and it’s the wrong book at the wrong time. This was definitely not the case here. I was just not interested in anything happening in this story. It was not compelling, it dragged on, and I just kept pushing through. I’m disappointed because I wanted to love this one.
January 5, 2026
I have always loved Peter Heller’s evocative writing and descriptions of landscapes and places, but I found that this book had little else going for it in the end. I did not think Frith’s voice was believable. While I liked the inclusion of poems, I found the rest of the book to be simple descriptions of people and things that happened rather than a book driven by plot or character development.
March 18, 2021
The principal characters are three women: a young mother who whisks her daughter to live in a cabin situated in a Vermont rural mountain valley, and an ebullient neighbor who takes an interest in the pair. Their history is narrated by the daughter whose memories range from age twelve to the present. It is a testament to Heller’s skill as a writer to convincingly couch his tale from a strictly female perspective.
I have now read four novels by Peter Heller. Each one has been distinctly different from the others, and yet there is a common theme in all of them. That theme may be easier to discern in this work. It should not be described as melancholic, but rather as a celebration of the human spirit; a brave determination to acknowledge the transience of life, with a will to face the future head on.
I have now read four novels by Peter Heller. Each one has been distinctly different from the others, and yet there is a common theme in all of them. That theme may be easier to discern in this work. It should not be described as melancholic, but rather as a celebration of the human spirit; a brave determination to acknowledge the transience of life, with a will to face the future head on.
February 19, 2022
I have no idea why I wanted to read this book, other than maybe because I enjoyed The Dog Stars, which I cannot even remember now. Once I put a book on my TBR I don't look at the blurb again before I read it, so I asked myself many times why I thought I wanted to read the book because I could tell things I try to avoid were going to happen. Had I read the blurb again before I started it, I probably would have changed my mind. Good thing, because I was wrong. Yes, I did have to stop listening for a day or so at the end when I realized it would amplify the stress over some stuff happening in my life, but I went back to it and then suddenly it was over.
The writing is lovely. As it has been described, it is the story of a young girl's unconventional upbringing in rural Vermont, rich with interesting characters and Heller's ability to fluidly weave in the natural setting. A loving tribute to her mother. I didn't even cry at the end which is amazing for me. The narration of the audiobook was soothing, and even when something akin to action occurred, you would hardly know it. The whole book reminds me of a river where everything on top seems calm, but the current moves right along underneath. The poems were interspersed like road marks on the path of their life, short and poignant. It was a lovely surprise.
The writing is lovely. As it has been described, it is the story of a young girl's unconventional upbringing in rural Vermont, rich with interesting characters and Heller's ability to fluidly weave in the natural setting. A loving tribute to her mother. I didn't even cry at the end which is amazing for me. The narration of the audiobook was soothing, and even when something akin to action occurred, you would hardly know it. The whole book reminds me of a river where everything on top seems calm, but the current moves right along underneath. The poems were interspersed like road marks on the path of their life, short and poignant. It was a lovely surprise.
March 29, 2020
I am a huge fan of Heller’s and tried a 30-day trial of Scribd for the sole purpose of reading The Orchard. I read it in two sittings and this book just gutted me. It was a much quieter read than his others and there was no suspense or climax, really, and I loved it all the same.
This is a story about a woman and her daughter, nature, poetry, friendship, love, and “the little things”. Oh, and a big, goofy dog. I ugly cried more times than I care to admit, and repeatedly thought of my relationship with my mom. As always, Heller’s writing is beautiful and his descriptions of nature & love are poignant and thoughtful.
This is a story about a woman and her daughter, nature, poetry, friendship, love, and “the little things”. Oh, and a big, goofy dog. I ugly cried more times than I care to admit, and repeatedly thought of my relationship with my mom. As always, Heller’s writing is beautiful and his descriptions of nature & love are poignant and thoughtful.
January 20, 2020
2 Stars for The Orchard (audiobook) by Peter Heller read by Kate Marein. This book is a Scribd Original and can be found there. I really didn’t enjoy this. The subject, writing and narration just didn’t work for me.
January 6, 2026
Characters: 5⭐️
Setting: 5⭐️
Plot: 4⭐️
Themes: 5⭐️
Emotional Impact: 5⭐️
Personal Enjoyment: 5⭐️
Total Average: 5⭐️ (rounded up)
Setting: 5⭐️
Plot: 4⭐️
Themes: 5⭐️
Emotional Impact: 5⭐️
Personal Enjoyment: 5⭐️
Total Average: 5⭐️ (rounded up)
May 12, 2020
This was extremely enjoyable. A nice, light read. I loved the translations of Chinese poetry - although when we were told that Hayley didn't actually know Chinese it was a little puzzling. Evocative, beautiful descriptions of what is presented as an idyllic childhood. But after losing her mother at the age of 8 or so, she idealizes her childhood to such an extent that she projects it onto her unborn daughter. She recreates that same childhood for her, and although she was fatherless for good reason, she makes her own child suffer that missing father deliberately. It seemed a little cruel to me. And selfish.
February 14, 2021
Another wonderful book by one of my favorite authors. His writing is so far and away better than others it makes it hard to choose my next read. This was a touching and beautiful story.
November 24, 2025
4,5 ⭐️ Un nouvel auteur que je découvre, qui a une plume soignée et qui se distingue selon moi par la richesse de ses descriptions, qui sont absolument magnifiques, délicieuses, touchantes, qui relèvent de petits détails, mais ô combien importants et significatifs dans l’histoire. J’aimerais tellement regarder une adaptation de ce livre au cinéma! 🥹
November 28, 2024
This is an interesting book as it's told from a woman’s perspective. All the other books I have read by Heller focus on male characters in a wilderness setting, outdoorsy men who have deep thoughts, some insecurties about life choices/relationships being a key component. The Vermont setting here features a defunct orchard, nature and living off the land.
There are haunting characters, the mother with a sad and educated background. Frith is the daughter, named for a character in The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico.
Frith refers to her mother as Haley; this is a bit of a coming of age story. Something which doesn't usually appeal to me. Haley is a translater of Chinese poetry and rears her daughter in a wooden cabin with a wood stove for heat and very little money. Haley and Frith are very well read - anything from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Treasure Island, The Old Man in the Sea, We Die Alone (about the Norwegian commando who outskied a Nazi division) to Grendel.
There is quite a bit of poetry in this book, there are some wonderful reflective passages from Frith as an adult, an educator who teaches at Amherst, and the memories of her unusal childhood with an amazing woman.
Heller brings you straight into this unusual family situation and pulls at your heartstrings at the end. 4.5 stars
There are haunting characters, the mother with a sad and educated background. Frith is the daughter, named for a character in The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico.
Frith refers to her mother as Haley; this is a bit of a coming of age story. Something which doesn't usually appeal to me. Haley is a translater of Chinese poetry and rears her daughter in a wooden cabin with a wood stove for heat and very little money. Haley and Frith are very well read - anything from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Treasure Island, The Old Man in the Sea, We Die Alone (about the Norwegian commando who outskied a Nazi division) to Grendel.
There is quite a bit of poetry in this book, there are some wonderful reflective passages from Frith as an adult, an educator who teaches at Amherst, and the memories of her unusal childhood with an amazing woman.
Heller brings you straight into this unusual family situation and pulls at your heartstrings at the end. 4.5 stars
October 28, 2019
I loved how Heller captured nature in The River and he did an excellent job yet again in the Orchard. To have an author not just simply state that she smiled but to describe how the mouth, eyes, wrinkles and body postures changed throughout each conversation brings you in deeper. To almost visually watching this story play out it brings a sense of intimately connecting with the characters. The theme was beautiful capturing the team a mother and daughter have to become to thrive in a world that is passing them by and the introduction of Rosie was such an amazing plot twist to exposure their relationship at a deeper level.
July 14, 2024
I am in love!
Oh my gosh! I am in love with this book! I honestly never thought that a man could feel this. Yes, the characters were women, but he knew them completely! Why have I never met a man this tender? This book has really moved me. If you are a tender person or if you love beautiful writing, you should read this book.
Oh my gosh! I am in love with this book! I honestly never thought that a man could feel this. Yes, the characters were women, but he knew them completely! Why have I never met a man this tender? This book has really moved me. If you are a tender person or if you love beautiful writing, you should read this book.
March 3, 2024
I might finally like (or love) poetry. This book is how I imagine my story would be told, if I were ever to write it. Start with the current and reflect from time to time on the past. Great, great story.
March 28, 2024
The most beautiful love story. Destroyed me, in the best way. I could not put it down.
Beautiful writing, as always. He creates the most miraculous sense of place, and his characters are so real.
Beautiful writing, as always. He creates the most miraculous sense of place, and his characters are so real.
January 31, 2026
What an exquisitely beautiful book.
“Truth may be beauty, but it is also heartbreak. That is certain. Because the truest thing, or at least the most certain, is that we will eventually lose everything.”
The Orchard is a quiet little book, in which not a whole lot happens. Mainly it is about the daily lives of Frith, who is seven, and her single mother, Hayley, their “Bernese mountain mutt” Bear, and their friend Rosie. Frith and Hayley live in a small cabin in rural Vermont. The cabin is heated by a wood stove, lit by a kerosene lantern, and has a small, propane-fueled refrigerator. The property features a pond, an orchard of decrepit apple trees, and enough maple trees to yield enough syrup to sell for a modest income. Hayley is a renowned translator of 9th century Chinese poetry; the poems are scattered through the novel as commentary of the mostly small events of Hayley and Frith’s life.
The poetry is not just in the actual poems but in the lyrical descriptions of the natural world that surrounds the mother and daughter: “the domain of the constellations, the fresh winds of the new seasons, the ripening apples and falling leaves and swelling brooks and thawing ice and phalanxes of migrating geese barking out of the high dark and and and . . .
Well, it was beautiful. It is.”
The book is told mostly in retrospect by Frith, with occasional forays into the present, as she goes through her mother’s papers and contemplates her own pregnancy.
In between the lyrical natural descriptions and the story of the mother-daughter-friend bonds, there’s the story of Frith herself, which is often quite amusing. She reminds me a bit of Scout Finch, with a combination of humorous insights and childish naivete, but Fitch is mostly homeschooled and has a remarkable but completely plausible precocious sophistication. And that makes her moments of childish confusion the more touching and funny. I wish I’d marked an example. Please take my word for it.
Things do, in fact, happen in the book, but they’re not dramatic, out of the ordinary things. They’re the true things, that heartbreak of losing everything.
A couple of passages I marked: This one is about translation, which I want to save for the next time I’m reading a book in translation that just doesn’t quite do it for me: “Did Hayley take the liberties it seems she took? Probably. A great translator always will. Because one who is too deferential ‘is running a railroad,’ Hayley once told me. ‘Shunting words together like boxcars.’”
And this evocative passage: “I did not know then how the rhythms of this country were imprinting themselves on my being. How the touch, like the lightest fingers, of that cool wind against the back of my ear, my temple, carrying those smells—of the river below, of the leaf-heavy woods, of ripening apples, of sun on granite bedrock and drying moss and the spored scent of warming ferns—how it would tune my senses for the rest of my life. Every wind after that, and every smell carried on the wind, would be compared with the ones that flowed over the two of us in those days.
What I like about that one is how effectively it captures both the scene itself in the moment and the emotional, nostalgic importance of those details as a memory.
A reader looking for a lot of plot will be disappointed by this book. It is not a book for the reader who habitually complains about “too much description.” Fine. Read something else. Your loss.
“Truth may be beauty, but it is also heartbreak. That is certain. Because the truest thing, or at least the most certain, is that we will eventually lose everything.”
The Orchard is a quiet little book, in which not a whole lot happens. Mainly it is about the daily lives of Frith, who is seven, and her single mother, Hayley, their “Bernese mountain mutt” Bear, and their friend Rosie. Frith and Hayley live in a small cabin in rural Vermont. The cabin is heated by a wood stove, lit by a kerosene lantern, and has a small, propane-fueled refrigerator. The property features a pond, an orchard of decrepit apple trees, and enough maple trees to yield enough syrup to sell for a modest income. Hayley is a renowned translator of 9th century Chinese poetry; the poems are scattered through the novel as commentary of the mostly small events of Hayley and Frith’s life.
The poetry is not just in the actual poems but in the lyrical descriptions of the natural world that surrounds the mother and daughter: “the domain of the constellations, the fresh winds of the new seasons, the ripening apples and falling leaves and swelling brooks and thawing ice and phalanxes of migrating geese barking out of the high dark and and and . . .
Well, it was beautiful. It is.”
The book is told mostly in retrospect by Frith, with occasional forays into the present, as she goes through her mother’s papers and contemplates her own pregnancy.
In between the lyrical natural descriptions and the story of the mother-daughter-friend bonds, there’s the story of Frith herself, which is often quite amusing. She reminds me a bit of Scout Finch, with a combination of humorous insights and childish naivete, but Fitch is mostly homeschooled and has a remarkable but completely plausible precocious sophistication. And that makes her moments of childish confusion the more touching and funny. I wish I’d marked an example. Please take my word for it.
Things do, in fact, happen in the book, but they’re not dramatic, out of the ordinary things. They’re the true things, that heartbreak of losing everything.
A couple of passages I marked: This one is about translation, which I want to save for the next time I’m reading a book in translation that just doesn’t quite do it for me: “Did Hayley take the liberties it seems she took? Probably. A great translator always will. Because one who is too deferential ‘is running a railroad,’ Hayley once told me. ‘Shunting words together like boxcars.’”
And this evocative passage: “I did not know then how the rhythms of this country were imprinting themselves on my being. How the touch, like the lightest fingers, of that cool wind against the back of my ear, my temple, carrying those smells—of the river below, of the leaf-heavy woods, of ripening apples, of sun on granite bedrock and drying moss and the spored scent of warming ferns—how it would tune my senses for the rest of my life. Every wind after that, and every smell carried on the wind, would be compared with the ones that flowed over the two of us in those days.
What I like about that one is how effectively it captures both the scene itself in the moment and the emotional, nostalgic importance of those details as a memory.
A reader looking for a lot of plot will be disappointed by this book. It is not a book for the reader who habitually complains about “too much description.” Fine. Read something else. Your loss.
January 6, 2026
I could literally feel the wonder of God’s creation in this novel.
•••
“I don’t think people pay enough attention to the momentous times in our lives when nothing happens.”
“It’s funny how simply, how quickly the lens can change through which we view our day, our lives.”
“I don’t know what happiness is. Something we seek and try to hold on to, and in the holding lose like water through fingers. In my own life, the happiness that sneaks up is the only true one.”
“Funny to see someone we think we know top to bottom change in another’s company.”
“It was a laughter that carried a freight of sadness. Or knowledge, which I’m coming to believe is the same thing.”
“She was not going to let me get me get wet, not by one drop, in the rain of her own grief or self-pity. She knew in her heart, I guess, that one day I would make plenty of weather on my own. Do we feel the canopy thinning above us? As we grow, as our elders decline and fall? I was not ready for that, for any thinning at all. The raw sky with all its violence is too harsh without the protective shade of a parent.”
“We were complete in our own company as we had always been.”
“There is forgetting, and then there is the deliberate decision not to remember.”
•••
“I don’t think people pay enough attention to the momentous times in our lives when nothing happens.”
“It’s funny how simply, how quickly the lens can change through which we view our day, our lives.”
“I don’t know what happiness is. Something we seek and try to hold on to, and in the holding lose like water through fingers. In my own life, the happiness that sneaks up is the only true one.”
“Funny to see someone we think we know top to bottom change in another’s company.”
“It was a laughter that carried a freight of sadness. Or knowledge, which I’m coming to believe is the same thing.”
“She was not going to let me get me get wet, not by one drop, in the rain of her own grief or self-pity. She knew in her heart, I guess, that one day I would make plenty of weather on my own. Do we feel the canopy thinning above us? As we grow, as our elders decline and fall? I was not ready for that, for any thinning at all. The raw sky with all its violence is too harsh without the protective shade of a parent.”
“We were complete in our own company as we had always been.”
“There is forgetting, and then there is the deliberate decision not to remember.”
January 12, 2026
The Orchard by Peter Heller is a beautifully written and deeply moving novel. The story unfolds in the present while Frith reflects on her childhood growing up with her mother, Haley, in a rustic cabin in the mountains. The Tang Dynasty poetry Haley translates is thoughtfully woven throughout the narrative, reinforcing Frith’s memories and deepening the emotional connection to her mother.
Themes of family, love, compassion, friendship, and trust are explored with subtlety and grace. This was my first experience reading Peter Heller, and it certainly won’t be my last. His lyrical descriptions, seamless movement between past and present, and the tender bond between mother and daughter completely captured me. I give this book five stars and highly recommend it.
Themes of family, love, compassion, friendship, and trust are explored with subtlety and grace. This was my first experience reading Peter Heller, and it certainly won’t be my last. His lyrical descriptions, seamless movement between past and present, and the tender bond between mother and daughter completely captured me. I give this book five stars and highly recommend it.
March 31, 2020
A short novel by the amazing Peter Heller. An enjoyable listen though I think I had too high of expectations for this scribd original. No surprise that Heller created a visceral sense of place in this novel set in Vermont. The pacing felt off to me as I think too many events were crammed into this novel that had a peaceful yet solemn tone. Loved the tie-in about the mother translating Chinese poems.
February 12, 2025
*3 Stars
The story is told about a mother and her daughter from the daughter's perspective and how the prospect of her being a mother makes her reminisce and miss her own mother.
I struggled at the beginning of this book as it was a slow start but my heart was warmed and I really enjoyed it towards the end.
The story is told about a mother and her daughter from the daughter's perspective and how the prospect of her being a mother makes her reminisce and miss her own mother.
I struggled at the beginning of this book as it was a slow start but my heart was warmed and I really enjoyed it towards the end.
August 21, 2022
I found this incredibly beautiful and touching. Also sad, but in a gentle way.
March 14, 2025
Holy crap. I loved this book.
January 14, 2026
Just a beautiful story of love with a mother and daughter.
January 22, 2026
This is my favorite Heller novel - a beautiful and powerful read.
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