Almost a poem. I kept thinking of Longfellow's Hiawatha as the story unfolded. The absence of quotation marks translated this tale of one man's relationship with 5 women into a sepia-toned silent film about place, wounded souls, and enduring love. ( )

4.5 The first 1/2 was great. Lost some momentum after that. Sad that she has not published in the 10 years since. ( )

A fine story with a deep sense of place and intensely felt characters tied to the places with layers of imagery. ( )

In an interview in the back of the book the author describes how she had a vision of a stolid old man in an orchard, with a young girl clinging to his pants, and a young woman in the background among the trees, and an overall air of grief among them, and that she wrote this book from that image. To me, this book felt like viewing a painting or photograph of her description, and thus I felt impressions of the characters from a very narrow distinct viewpoint, but not an overall understanding of them or ability to relate to them. ( )

Beautiful story, loved it. ( )