The Orchard

The bucolic, self-sequestered life of a mother and daughter is unceremoniously interrupted by a curious stranger in Heller’s lush latest (after Burn). Hayley, a celebrated professor and translator of Chinese poetry, retreats from public life to rural Vermont, where she homeschools her bookish seven-year-old, Frith, in their off-the-grid cabin. Haley chose the rustic setting to escape the burdens of her career and the pain of intimate relationships, and Frith, who narrates, is comfortable with the pastoral arrangement. Things change with an unexpected visit from Rosie Lattimore, a local weaver, who reintroduces Hayley and Frith to the pleasures of social interactions, the notion of fun, and the bounties of true friendship. The unhurried narrative is flush with themes of motherhood, family, the healing properties of poetry, and the kindness of strangers, and periodically flashes forward to Frith as an adult recalling her youth and the way Rosie opened new worlds to her and Hayley. Heller brings the setting to life with lyrical prose (winter icicles “extended their glass fingers,” and pop-top cans of beer issue “sharp sighs”), and delivers an emotionally charged, heart-wrenching conclusion. Readers are in for a treat. Agent: David Halpern, David Halpern Literary. (Jan.)