Description
'What made the orchard miraculous was an abandoned railway carriage, set down as if by magic, its wheels gone, anchored by long grass and nettles. Ruby and I stared at it and each other ...dark-windowed, out of place in a thicket of thorns, it was the perfect hide-out, house, the camp of our dreams' When April's parents move from London to rural Kent she makes her first best friend. With flame-haired, fearless Ruby, April shares secrets, dares and laughter. But Ruby has secrets of her own -bruises that she hides. Also seeking April's friendship is old Mr Greenidge, immaculate in his linen suit, with eyes like blue glass. He follows her around the village with his beguiling dachshund, and wants to learn everything about her.
About the Author
Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1944. Her writing career began when she won a prize for a poem written when she was fourteen. Two novellas, Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumberger and Toddler on the Run were published before she was twenty. Redhill Rococo won the 1987 Fawcett Prize, Dunedin won a 1994 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, The Orchard on Fire was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize and, in 2003, Heligoland was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Southampton.
Reviews
So touched with magic, so achingly sad and funny that my breath was taken away . . . wonderful * The Times *
An extremely beautiful and funny novel . . . The Orchard on Fire is probably Mackay's most perfect book, produced with a technical adroitness and shapeliness which one can only envy * Guardian *
A harvest festival of sensuous detail, intimate, rich . . . Compulsively readable * Daily Telegraph *
Shena Mackay is a writer in prime: at the height of her powers . . . Her prose is flawlessly seductive and comic, confidently witty and sensual * Independent on Sunday *
Wholly delightful . . . Shena Mackay is an assured artist -- A. N. Wilson * Evening Standard *
A celebration of childhood as well as a mourning for the loss of innocence . . . a bitter-sweet, gentle novel, not given to grandstanding or preaching, but shot through with humour and compassion. Her writing brilliantly captures the spirit of the place, where every present sensation has ghostly overtones that make the experience all the more sad and lovely * Times Literary Supplement *
An eloquent, beautifully written, unpretentious novel about a Fifties childhood . . . Mackay moved this reader to tears, not from grief but from joy. Now there's a skill * Mail on Sunday *
Totally authentic, agonisingly nostalgic, this poignant everyday story of Fifties folk has the power to lay bare everyone's susceptibility to the ghosts that forever teem around the scenes of our childhood * Daily Mail *
Shena Mackay has brought off something quite rare . . . the author has set out a rite of passage which will leave few readers unaffected * Spectator *
Book Information
ISBN 9780349007212
Author Shena Mackay
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 213g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 128mm * 24mm
About the Author
Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1944. Her writing career began when she won a prize for a poem written when she was fourteen. Two novellas, Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumberger and Toddler on the Run were published before she was twenty. Redhill Rococo won the 1987 Fawcett Prize, Dunedin won a 1994 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, The Orchard on Fire was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize and, in 2003, Heligoland was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Southampton.
Reviews
So touched with magic, so achingly sad and funny that my breath was taken away . . . wonderful * The Times *
An extremely beautiful and funny novel . . . The Orchard on Fire is probably Mackay's most perfect book, produced with a technical adroitness and shapeliness which one can only envy * Guardian *
A harvest festival of sensuous detail, intimate, rich . . . Compulsively readable * Daily Telegraph *
Shena Mackay is a writer in prime: at the height of her powers . . . Her prose is flawlessly seductive and comic, confidently witty and sensual * Independent on Sunday *
Wholly delightful . . . Shena Mackay is an assured artist -- A. N. Wilson * Evening Standard *
A celebration of childhood as well as a mourning for the loss of innocence . . . a bitter-sweet, gentle novel, not given to grandstanding or preaching, but shot through with humour and compassion. Her writing brilliantly captures the spirit of the place, where every present sensation has ghostly overtones that make the experience all the more sad and lovely * Times Literary Supplement *
An eloquent, beautifully written, unpretentious novel about a Fifties childhood . . . Mackay moved this reader to tears, not from grief but from joy. Now there's a skill * Mail on Sunday *
Totally authentic, agonisingly nostalgic, this poignant everyday story of Fifties folk has the power to lay bare everyone's susceptibility to the ghosts that forever teem around the scenes of our childhood * Daily Mail *
Shena Mackay has brought off something quite rare . . . the author has set out a rite of passage which will leave few readers unaffected * Spectator *
Book Information
ISBN 9780349007212
Author Shena Mackay
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 213g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 128mm * 24mm
