At The Edge of the Orchard

This book, At The Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier made me sad.  Sad because when it was over I wasn't ready for it to be over yet.  I listened to it on CD and didn't realize I was on the last one until the person on the CD said, "The End."  I wasn't ready for the end.  I loved this book.  A couple chapters were in the form of letters that never reached their destination.  The first part of the book is about a poor farm family living in a swamp in Ohio trying to grow apple trees.  The farmer and his wife have a volatile relationship.  The second half of the book is about one of their boys, Robert Goodenough, making his way west. Robert is a lot like his father and is also very much into trees.  But it was Robert's mother, Sadie Goodenough that intrigued me.  Sadie was designed to abhor.  She was a terrible person.  She was mean and vengeful.  She drank to excess. She abused her husband and her children.  She was promiscuous, sarcastic, toxic, and selfish.  But her story, and the things she said, made me somehow understand why she acted the way she did. All his life Robert traveled west to get away from his family.  At the end of the book, he journeys east and that is where the story abruptly ends.  I loved this story.  I would have loved it more if it was longer.