Family

Family is an important theme in the novel “The Orchardist” by Amanda Coplin. Family, thematically, involves the mutual love, loyalty, compassion, and emotional, physical, and even spiritual support between individuals who may or may not be blood-related, but who still act in accord with the traditional family unit. In the novel, family appears as both an incredibly important, positive, and successful thing, and as a failure or something lacking in other parts.

Talmadge, when the novel begins, is a man without a family. He revels in his solitude in his orchards, though he is lonely and sad about the past. His father was killed years before in a mining accident in the Oregon Territory. Talmadge then moved with his mother and sister, Elsbeth, to land near Cashmere, Washington, to begin an orchard farm. Soon after, Talmadge’s mother dies. His sister later disappears, the exact cause...