The Orchards

About the Book

Before Pearl Harbor the community of Gravenstein in Northern California was a comfortable mix of Japanese-Americans, Italian-Americans, and other Euro-Americans most of whom were born there. WWII presented a serious social and political challenge for the apple ranchers who had been accustomed to friendly cooperation at the critical times of pruning and harvest. Jane Thompson and George and Ann Tanaka grew up together. Jane’s husband, Pete Stockard, was not local, and he accepted the racism of WWII patriotic propaganda. George Tanaka joined the U.S.Army immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but nonetheless his wife and three young children were shipped off to an Internment Camp. Jane offered to take care of their home and orchards along with her own. The stress this placed on the Stockards’ marriage led Pete to enlist as well. His subsequent death in Belgium took a heavy emotional toll on his daughters, Linda and Sue, particularly on Linda who believed her father was the only one who understood her.

The Orchards follows the struggles for independence of the three young women, Sue, Linda, and Rose, the youngest child of the Tanakas. Linda wants to get away from the orchards and her mother whom she holds responsible for her father’s death. She leaves and never looks back. Sue and Rose also leave to follow non-traditional lives but they continue to look back with longing, a longing that fuels, in very different ways, their creative energy. This novel follows the Tanaka and the Stockard families as they seek their places in the post-war world.

About the Author

Margery Wolf was born and raised in Sonoma County, California, where the fictitious town of Gravenstein is located. Like the young women she writes about in The Orchards, she too had to leave home to find her own way. She recently retired as a Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies at the University of Iowa. Her earlier books include The House of Lim:A Study of a Chinese Farm Family (Prentice-Hall) and A Thrice Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility (Stanford University Press). All of her previous publications are based on years of ethnographic fieldwork in Taiwan and China. She is married to Mac Marshall, who is a retired Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iowa.