Orchard [Audio Cassette]

Larry Watson (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2003

From the bestselling author of Montana 1948 comes the explosive story of an artist, his muse, and the staggering price they pay for their chance at immortality.

Ned Weaver, an internationally acclaimed painter, is famous in Door County, Wisconsin, for his luminous work—and for his affairs with his models. His wife, Harriet, has learned to accept these dalliances in the belief that his immense talent will ultimately make up for his shortcomings as a husband.

Sonja Skordahl, a Norwegian immigrant, came to America looking for a new life. Instead, she married Henry House, only to find herself defined, like so many other mid-twentieth-century women, by her roles as wife and mother. As circumstances and destiny land Sonja in Ned’s studio, she becomes more than his model and more than an object of desire—she becomes the most inspiring muse Ned has ever known. When both Ned and Henry insist on possessing her, their jealousies threaten to erupt into violence, and Sonja must find a way to placate both men without sacrificing her hard-won sense of self.

With the stark, lyrical prose that Larry Watson is known for (“as fresh and clear as [a] trout stream” —The Washington Post Book World) and vivid characters who seem to breathe on the page, Orchard explores the lives of four very different people bound together by beauty, art, obsession, and betrayal.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Showing a deep maturity of thought and craft, Watson (Montana 1948; White Crosses) surpasses himself in his sixth novel, an uncompromising, perfectly calibrated double portrait of two couples in rural Wisconsin in the 1950s. Ned Weaver is a famous artist, Henry House an orchard keeper. Ned, like many creative people, is self-absorbed and cruel to his adoring wife, Harriet, with whom he has two grown daughters. Harriet, ignoring his serial adultery, has long ago accepted that Ned's art is what matters most in the world; she has "rehearsed her role so well that not even she could discern a difference between performance and belief." Henry House and his wife, Sonja, are younger than the Weavers; Henry was raised picking apples, and Sonja came from Norway to Wisconsin when she was 12. As the novel begins, they are grieving the death of their young son, who collapsed mysteriously one summer day just outside Sonja's kitchen window. Invited to pose for Weaver, Sonja accepts, not for the money or because she is attracted to Weaver, though her motives are unclear even to herself. When Henry finds out from his cronies that Sonja has been posing in the nude, he is wild with jealousy and plots revenge. Ned's paintings of Sonja inevitably call to mind Andrew Wyeth's famous Helga series. But whatever the novel's inspiration, it is in no way limited by the constraints of fact. Sentences and chapters unfurl with a sense of inevitability, and the narrative possesses an uncommon integrity. When Ned first paints Sonja nude, he marvels at her beatific poise: "The carpenter picks up his hammer, the artist takes brush in hand. This woman shed her clothes, nakedness her craft and art." Watson composes this marvelous novel with the same assurance.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Following his acclaimed series of Montana novels, set in the 1940s and 1950s, Watson has turned to more contemporary settings and themes, first in Laura (2000), about a poet and her influence on her lover's son, and now in this story of a talented but egotistic painter and the lives he touches in Door County, Wisconsin. When Sonia House, wife of an apple grower, agrees to pose for Ned Weaver, she unwittingly puts in motion a chain of events that leads to tragedy. Accustomed to having affairs with his models, the philandering Ned finds that his attraction to Sonia goes much deeper. Watson vividly captures the special self-centeredness of the artist, whose "capacity for generosity, honesty, and wholeness" is expressed only in his art, not in his relations with others (especially his saintlike wife, Harriet). As Ned and Sonia's husband struggle for possession of the surprisingly independent Sonia, Watson, flashing back and forward throughout the narrative, builds tension as he reveals inner lives. Another fine effort from a master of plainspoken prose. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Recorded Books; Unabridged edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402563582
• ISBN-13: 978-1402563584
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.1 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,626,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry Watson was born in 1947 in Rugby, North Dakota. He grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and was educated in its public schools. Larry married his high school sweetheart, Susan Gibbons, in 1967. He received his BA and MA from the University of North Dakota, his PhD from the creative writing program at the University of Utah, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Ripon College. Watson has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987, 2004) and the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Larry Watson is the author of the novels IN A DARK TIME, MONTANA 1948, WHITE CROSSES, LAURA, ORCHARD, and SUNDOWN, YELLOW MOON; the fiction collection JUSTICE; and the chapbook of poetry LEAVING DAKOTA. Watson's fiction has been published in ten foreign editions, and has received prizes and awards from Milkweed Press, Friends of American Writers, Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association, New York Public Library, Wisconsin Library Association, Critics' Choice, and The High Plains Book Award. MONTANA 1948 was nominated for the first IMPAC Dublin international literary prize. The movie rights to MONTANA 1948 and JUSTICE have been sold to Echo Lake Productions and WHITE CROSSES and ORCHARD have been optioned for film.

He has published short stories and poems in Gettysburg Review, New England Review, North American Review, Mississippi Review, and other journals and quarterlies. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and other periodicals. His work has also been anthologized in Essays for Contemporary Culture, Imagining Home, Off the Beaten Path, Baseball and the Game of Life, The Most Wonderful Books, These United States, and Writing America.

Watson taught writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin/​Stevens Point for 25 years before joining the faculty at Marquette University in 2003 as a Visiting Professor. He has also taught and participated in writers conferences in Colorado, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Wisconsin, St. Malo and Caen, France.

Larry's latest novel, AMERICAN BOY, will be published by Milkweed Editions in 2011. He and Susan live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They have two daughters, Elly and Amy, and two grandchildren, Theodore and Abigail.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A rising literary master, August 25, 2003

By 

Ron Franscell, Author of 'Sourtoe Cocktail Club' - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orchard: A Novel (Hardcover)

Larry Watson takes the less-traveled roads, through landscapes and heartscapes vaguely familiar, intensely poetic, always jangling.

From his breakout novel, "Montana 1948" -- which explores a family's disintegration when an uncle is accused of sexual abuse in a small town -- to his sixth and newest novel "Orchard," he has established himself as one of the leading poetic realists, painting his stories across the canvas of interiors: small-town America and the human heart.

Weaver and Sonja's erotic, artistic relationship clearly harks back to the real-life coupling of American master Andrew Wyeth and his most famous model, Helga. But the reader is well-advised to acknowledge the similarities between art and life -- then forget it. "Orchard" is more. It is filled with characters who are as flawed as their surroundings and circumstances, and a landscape that is achingly painted.

Watson's earlier works -- most notably "Montana 1948" and "White Crosses" -- have won the Milkweed Fiction Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Association Regional Award, and many other literary prizes. Publishers Weekly even predicted that if booksellers talk up "Orchard" it might match the commercial success of "Montana 1948," the book that put Watson on the literary map.

But it's too bad that books as lyrical as "Orchard" and writers as starkly poetic as Watson must depend on the kindness of strangers to get the exposure they deserve in today's speed-obsessed marketplace, where character development and thoughtful prose are too-often considered poisonous.

In American letters, the good old days of strong characters in dire human straits have dwindled to a handful of writers and books. Even so-called reality TV isn't real. Watson's real-life themes -- lust, self-absorption, jealousy, grief and loss -- will grab the reader's gut and twist it better than any cat detective, cynical ex-CIA operative or vampire terrorist.

One must simply venture down a road less traveled.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A 50s melodrama of sexual politics and art, September 27, 2003

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Orchard: A Novel (Hardcover)

The apple orchards of 1950's Door County, Wisconsin are the setting for this mellifluous story of artistic endeavor and sexual politics. Watson has a nice, easy, relaxed style that lends itself very well to this type of small town story. His style is at times poetic, and at times stark, as he paints a picture, and sets the story against the backdrop of the changing seasons.

Watson presents us with two couples whose betrayals will forever haunt them. Henry House, earthy, sexy and the owner of the apple orchard is newly married to Sonja, a Swedish immigrant. After losing their son in a terrible accident they suddenly drift apart sexually and emotionally. Ned Weaver is the controlling selfish artist who treats his wife Harriet, without respect and combs the town looking for muses for his art. When Sonja decides to model for Ned to earn some extra money, the sparks really fly when Henry finds out that other men in the town have been furtively watching the "artistic" exchange between artist and model. From the opening, Watson engages us in sexual politics, nasty game playing, petty betrayals, and family tensions and we get a feeling of inevitability as the story reaches its shattering climax. It is the men in the novel who come out looking bad - selfish, uncommunicative, nasty and controlling.

Orchard addresses the sexual hypocrisy and dysfunctional marriages of the time, while also addressing the wider themes of sexuality and art. To Ned Weaver a beautiful nude model is not necessarily a sexual being, unless he wants her to be a sexual being! And it's all on his terms. For Ned unclothing beautiful women and painting them is all about his art and work, and his work is the most important thing in his life; more important than his marriage, children or friends. Henry's challenge is to try and understand that "nakedness is craft and art"; and to transcend the idea that his wife is merely being labeled as a "sexual object" by Ned.

There is good character development in this novel, along with a wonderfully adept use of metaphor. Watson really makes us appreciate the tension and sensuality of a single action - the peeling of sunburn, the eating of an apple, the removal of slinky negligee - and he does this so economically. Deftly weaving together imagery of four very different lives, Orchard could almost be called a literary painting. This is an interesting and quite moving work.

Michael

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lofty themes in the most unpretentious of settings., August 23, 2003

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Orchard: A Novel (Hardcover)

As connected to the earth as the orchardist who is one of the main characters, this powerful novel weaves the intimate details of everyday lives in rural Door County, Wisconsin, into a riveting domestic tragedy. In simple, spare language author Larry Watson depicts the lives of two couples, very different from each other, each trying to fulfill dreams and cope with the silences and miscommunications which arise in their marriages, then brings the two couples together to make connections with each other.

Henry House is the orchardist, laboriously tending his apple trees and harvesting his crop, a hard-working man living close to the earth. He and his wife Sonja have been devastated by the death of their four-year-old son from a blow to the head. Consumed by grief, they are unable to reach out to each other in their need, each reliving the trauma separately. Ned Weaver, their neighbor, is a talented and respected artist who is willing to subordinate all other aspects of his life to his art. Despite his reputation for womanizing and his many betrayals, especially with his models, his wife Harriet loves him and has found some satisfaction in the role of caretaker of his creative flame.

Watson tells his story of these four people and their interactions obliquely, moving back and forth in time, building the drama and tension to a high pitch as the reader is presented with vivid scenes of danger and violence which sometimes have no context. We do not know, at first, who the characters are, how they may be connected, why they are behaving as they do, or in what order these scenes take place, and it is not until late in the novel that some of these mysterious events are explained. Contemplating how the scenes are connected, the reader becomes intimately involved in the narrative, an involvement which never lets up as the story becomes more complex.

Watson is an exceptionally "clean," no-frills writer, creating many layers of meaning in homely details and images which advance the themes and intensify the emotion. In one of the most unusual scenes in modern fiction, for example, Ned, sun-burned and peeling from an afternoon of painting along the lake, asks his wife to peel his back, a scene laden with far more significance than the simple need to scratch an itch. Themes of love and betrayal, freedom and control, suffering and redemption, innocence and guilt-all universal themes from the beginning of human history-are seen through the prism of an artist's life and his desire to leave a lasting legacy. In all its simplicity, Watson's novel carries the power and resonance of the very best of dramatic fiction. Mary Whipple