Coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, best friends Anya and Milka try to envision a free and joyful future for themselves. They spend their summers at Anya's dacha just outside of Moscow, lazing in the apple orchard, listening to Queen songs, and fantasizing about trips abroad and the lives of American teenagers. Meanwhile, Anya's parents talk about World War II, the Blockade, and the hardships they have endured. By the time Anya and Milka are fifteen, the Soviet Empire is on the verge of collapse. They pair up with classmates Trifonov and Lopatin, and the four friends share secrets and desires, argue about history and politics, and discuss forbidden books. But the world is changing, and the fleeting time they have together is cut short by a sudden tragedy.
Spectacular ... An intensely evocative and gorgeously written coming-of-age story ... Gorcheva-Newberry suffuses her story with Russian color ... And she has a genuine gift for metaphor ... Life indeed holds many sorrows for young eyes, sorrows that will fill readers' eyes with tears and wonder at Gorcheva-Newberry's magnificent tale.
The Orchard is a novel that engages with the paradoxical way in which youth opens one up to the world and that same quality is lost within it ... This story does not offer an in-depth history lesson for its readers, nor does it parse political moves marked with terms such as perestroika and glasnost. Any wisdom offered is in retrospect ... The importance of female relationships and stories is also supported by the reality that inspired the events in The Orchard.
If there is such a thing as clear-eyed sentimentality, The Orchard evokes it, with its warts-and-all recollections of youthful passions, when the road ahead seems like one endless string of possibilities ... Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry does the reader a great service, offering a peek behind the Iron Curtain and its veil of propaganda.
