Synopses & Reviews
One of Southern Living's Best New Books Coming Out Summer 2018
Janie Treeborne lives on an orchard at the edge of Elberta, Alabama, and in time, she has become its keeper. A place where conquistadors once walked, and where the peaches they left behind now grow, Elberta has seen fierce battles, violent storms, and frantic change — and when the town is once again threatened from without, Janie realizes it won’t withstand much more. So she tells the story of its people: of Hugh, her granddaddy, determined to preserve Elberta’s legacy at any cost; of his wife, Maybelle, the postmaster, whose sudden death throws the town into chaos; of her lover, Lee Malone, a black orchardist harvesting from a land where he is less than welcome; of the time when Janie kidnapped her own Hollywood-obsessed aunt and tore the wrong people apart.
As the world closes in on Elberta, Caleb Johnson’s debut novel lifts the veil and offers one last glimpse. Treeborne is a celebration and a reminder: of how the past gets mixed up in thoughts of the future; of how home is a story as much as a place.
Review
"Johnson's gem of a novel tells of a place and its people so vivid and real that readers won't want their stories to end." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
"Superb....It isn't a coincidence the Treebornes' town shares a person's name; the whole place is as alive as if it walked on two feet. Sentence by loamy sentence, this gifted author digs up corpses and upends trees to create a place laden with magic and memory." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"In his debut novel, Johnson has conjured a stunning account of the Treeborne family of Elberta, Alabama, creating an immersive sense of both time and place as he probes the memories and resentments that linger among the town's residents over the course of decades....Majestic in scope, jam-packed with revelations and a touch of the fantastical, Treeborne is an enthralling story about what binds people together and breaks them apart." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"A story about complicated legacies and the people who bring to life the places we call home." Southern Living (Best New Books Coming Out This Summer)
Review
"In Treeborne, Caleb Johnson spins an artful, intricate web of a place — its rich history and memorable characters caught and held there by stories told and secrets withheld. Suspenseful and immensely satisfying." Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life
About the Author
Caleb Johnson grew up in the rural community of Arley, Alabama, and graduated from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He was awarded a Jentel Writing Residency after he received his MFA from the University of Wyoming. Caleb has worked as a newspaper reporter, a janitor, a butcher, and an arts administrator, among other jobs. Currently, he lives in Philadelphia, where he teaches while working on his next novel.
Caleb Johnson on PowellsBooks.Blog
When I was a kid, my family vacationed every summer on the Gulf of Mexico. The drive from our home in Arley, Alabama, took six or seven hours depending on traffic and how many stops we made along the way. I learned to mark our progress by certain landmarks. Downtown Birmingham rising up at the bottom of Red Mountain, the Alabama River bending past Montgomery...
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