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The orchard : a novel /

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2020]Edition: First editionDescription: 480 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780062974747
  • 0062974742
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 813/.6 23
LOC classification:
  • PS3608.O633 O73 2020
Summary: "A commanding debut and a poignant coming-of-age story about a devout Jewish high school student whose plunge into the secularized world threatens everything he knows of himself"--
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Holdings
Item type Current library Home library Collection Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Standard Loan Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Fiction Coeur d'Alene Library Book HOPEN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 50610022330927
Standard Loan Hayden Library Adult Fiction Hayden Library Book HOPEN (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 50610022877596
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A NATION­AL JEW­ISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A Recommended Book From:

The New York Times * Good Morning America * Entertainment Weekly * Electric Literature * The New York Post * Alma * The Millions * Book Riot

A commanding debut and a poignant coming-of-age story about a devout Jewish high school student whose plunge into the secularized world threatens everything he knows of himself

Ari Eden's life has always been governed by strict rules. In ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn, his days are dedicated to intense study and religious rituals, and adolescence feels profoundly lonely. So when his family announces that they are moving to a glitzy Miami suburb, Ari seizes his unexpected chance for reinvention.

Enrolling in an opulent Jewish academy, Ari is stunned by his peers' dizzying wealth, ambition, and shameless pursuit of life's pleasures. When the academy's golden boy, Noah, takes Ari under his wing, Ari finds himself entangled in the school's most exclusive and wayward group. These friends are magnetic and defiant--especially Evan, the brooding genius of the bunch, still living in the shadow of his mother's death.

Influenced by their charismatic rabbi, the group begins testing their religion in unconventional ways. Soon Ari and his friends are pushing moral boundaries and careening toward a perilous future--one in which the traditions of their faith are repurposed to mysterious, tragic ends.

Mesmerizing and playful, heartrending and darkly romantic, The Orchard probes the conflicting forces that determine who we become: the heady relationships of youth, the allure of greatness, the doctrines we inherit, and our concealed desires.

"A commanding debut and a poignant coming-of-age story about a devout Jewish high school student whose plunge into the secularized world threatens everything he knows of himself"--

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

DEBUT The child of an ultraconservative Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn, Ari is transported to an affluent "modern conservative" Jewish community in south Florida for his senior year in high school. He is welcomed by neighbor and schoolmate Evan, which allows him entrance into the "cool kids on campus" clique; Evan, a rebellious intellectual teen, is its charismatic leader and can convince his crowd (and almost everyone else) to believe and do almost anything. The death of his mother the previous year has put Evan in a precarious mental state, but no one seems to notice. Ari struggles to adapt to his new life, experimenting with new ideas and experiencing high teenage angst. He feels pressured to follow along with Evan's schemes, even things he knows are wrong and even after it is clear that Evan is unhinged. The inevitable tragedy that results represents a coming of age that no one wants. VERDICT Though Hopen presents a somewhat formulaic story of the journey from child to adult, he renders it compelling by inserting discussions of Jewish and other religious traditions and making mental health--or lack thereof--a central theme. He clearly conveys the painful transition his characters experience. Readers of coming-of-age narratives will enjoy.--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Publishers Weekly Review

Hopen commingles religious philosophy and dangerous behavior in his ambitious debut. Aryeh, 17, has always felt somewhat alienated from his deeply devout orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn's Borough Park, so when his father's job loss prompts a family move to southern Florida, Aryeh welcomes the opportunity to start over for senior year. He lands a coveted spot at elite Kol Neshama Academy, a modern Orthodox school whose students will undoubtedly drive their luxury cars all the way to the Ivy League. Despite his unfashionable attire and lack of social and academic sophistication, Aryeh is taken under the wing of the school's golden boy, Noah. Noah's risk-taking circle of friends in turn introduce Aryeh (soon redubbed Andrew) to the pleasures of secular life. Aryeh is especially fascinated by charismatic, emotionally complicated Evan, who has an emotional hold over Aryeh's love interest, Sophia, and the group test their faith with daring escapades such as midnight speedboat rides ("if you're the worthy one, you survive," Evan says, fast approaching a jetty). Later, experiments with LSD bring on visions of God. Aryeh's insecurities and longings are on full display in his insightful--if at times overwrought--narration. Though the students' lengthy philosophical and scriptural debates initially seem ponderous, their thematic connections become increasingly apparent as the novel nears its moving climax. This isn't your average campus novel, and despite its lumps, is all the better for it. Agent: Emily Forland. Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Nov.)

Booklist Review

When 17-year-old Ari's father loses his job, the family, Orthodox Jews, leave Brooklyn and move to sun-kissed South Florida, where Ari is enrolled in a prestigious coed yeshiva, Kol Neshama. There he is adopted by his neighbor, golden-boy Noah, and introduced to Noah's tight circle of friends, the most intriguing of whom is Evan, a reputed genius, who is deeply troubled and insists that he sees himself in naive, unworldly Ari, who hotly disputes this claim. But both boys do have one thing in common: they are obsessed with beautiful, musically gifted Sophia. Gradually, Ari is brought into the quasi-secular world of his new friends, learning to drink and smoke marijuana, even while he displays brilliance at writing and becomes a protégé of the kind principal, Rabbi Bloom, who has a similar close relationship with Evan, who is obsessed with seeing God and contrives a way, in the company of the other boys, to try to do just that, with disastrous results. This is a brilliantly conceived and crafted coming-of-age novel of ideas, replete with literary and philosophical references, many of them Judaic. Indeed, the novel almost demands familiarity with Judaism, its culture, rituals, and vocabulary. Happily, though, this doesn't compromise in any way the larger metaphysical meanings of the novel. At one point Ari asks a teacher, "Is tragedy dead?" The ultimate answer is that, in its majestic sadness, it is alive and well in this unforgettable novel.

Kirkus Book Review

In Hopen's ambitious debut, an Orthodox Jewish high school student finds his world transformed when his family moves to South Florida. When protagonist Ari Eden leaves his bland life in Brooklyn--where he never felt deeply rooted--for a glitzy, competitive Modern Orthodox day school in the Miami suburbs, both readers and Ari himself are primed to expect a fish-out-of-water narrative. And indeed, Ari finds that his new classmates, though also traditionally observant by many standards, enjoy a lifestyle that is far more permissive than his own (a shade of Orthodoxy that is known as "yeshiva"). Suddenly Ari's modest, pious world is replaced with a Technicolor whirlwind that includes rowdy parties, casual sex, drinking, drugs, and far more liberal interpretations of Jewish law than he has ever known. With its representation of multiple kinds of traditional Judaism, Hopen's novel is a refreshing corrective to the popular tendency to erase the nuanced variations that exist under the umbrella of "Orthodoxy." It also stands out for its stereotype-defying portrayal of Ari and his friends as teenagers with typical teenage concerns. But this is not just a novel about reorienting oneself socially or even religiously; though Ari's level of observance certainly shifts, this is also not a simple "off the derech" (Jewish secularization) narrative. Ari's new friend group, particularly its charismatic, enigmatic leader, Evan--a sort of foil for Ari--pushes him to consider new philosophical and existential norms as well as social, academic, and religious ones. The result is an entirely surprising tale, rich with literary allusions and Talmudic connections, about the powerful allure of belonging. This novel will likely elicit comparisons to the work of Chaim Potok: Like Potok's protagonists, Ari is a religious Jew with a deep passion for literature, Jewish texts, and intellectual inquiry, and as in Potok's fiction, his horizons are broadened when he encounters other forms of Orthodoxy. But Hopen's debut may actually have more in common with campus novels like Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Tobias Wolff's Old School; its narrator's involvement in an intense intellectual community leads him down an unexpected path that profoundly alters his worldview. The novel suffers due to its lamentably one-dimensional, archetypal female characters: the tortured-artist love interest, the ditsy blond, the girl next door. Hopen's prose, and the scale of his project, occasionally feels overindulgent, but in that sense, form and content converge: This stylistic expansiveness is actually perfectly in tune with the world of the novel. Overall, Hopen's debut signals a promising new literary talent; in vivid prose, the novel thoughtfully explores cultural particularity while telling a story with universal resonances. A captivating Jewish twist on the classic American campus novel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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