Synopses & Reviews
"What a crazed, beautiful book—a joyful example of necessary experimentation, i.e., an experiment whose purpose is to accommodate more beauty and truth. As in his first book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, Boucher makes the world come alive by making language come alive." —George Saunders
Welcome to Appleseed, Massachusetts, where stories grow in soil, sentences are kept as pets, and pianos change your point of view. Golden Delicious chronicles the narrator’s rich, vivid childhood—driving to the local flea market with his father, causing trouble at school, pedaling through the neighborhood on his Bicycle Built for Two.
But as the local economy sours, the narrator’s family is torn apart. His mother joins a flying militia known as The Mothers; his father takes an all-consuming job; his sister runs away for a better life elsewhere. Who will save Appleseed? Will it be the Memory of Johnny Appleseed? The Mothers? The narrator himself?
Golden Delicious is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Christopher Boucher’s acclaimed debut, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. It’s a tour-de-force unlike any other, that takes you to the heart of family, love and memory.
Review
"Storytelling is split weirdly, beautifully, open…After feasting on this book…your brain is bound to be doing syntactical backflips." The Valley Advocate
Review
"With the imaginative spirit that earned him praise for his debut, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive (2011), Boucher’s second novel solidifies him as a master of evoking compassion through absurd, shape- shifting landscapes…As wacky as it is recognizable, Boucher’s capricious world filled with delightful wordplay is strikingly vivid, funny, and moving." Booklist
Review
"An odd, clever, and thoroughly enjoyable experience." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Bonkers, in the best way…Part bildungsroman, part picaresque, and part meta-commentary on reading…" Electric Literature
Review
"Christopher Boucher’s Golden Delicious is the best kind of modern fiction: inventive, expansive, with endless heart and narrative verve…this book will restore your belief in the possibility of the novel. Read this book now." Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned
Synopsis
"What a crazed, beautiful book... Boucher makes the world come alive by makinglanguagecome alive." George Saunders
From the writer Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven) called "Strange and dazzling" comes a funny, heartbreaking, and wildly imaginative tale
Welcome to Appleseed, Massachusetts, where stories grow in soil, sentences are kept as pets, and pianos change your point of view.Golden Delicious chronicles the narrator's rich, vivid childhood - driving to the local flea market with his father, causing trouble at school, pedaling through the neighborhood on his Bicycle Built for Two.
But as the local economy sours, the narrator's family is torn apart. His mother joins a flying militia known as The Mothers; his father takes an all-consuming job; his sister runs away for a better life elsewhere. Who will save Appleseed? Will it be the Memory of Johnny Appleseed? The Mothers? The narrator himself?
Golden Deliciousis the eagerly awaited follow-up to Christopher Boucher's acclaimed debut, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. It's a tour-de-force unlike any other, that takes you to the heart of family, love and memory."
About the Author
Christopher Boucher teaches writing and literature at Boston College, and is the managing editor of Post Road Magazine. He is the author of How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive and lives with his wife and two children in Newton, MA.