‘The Orchard’: Featured Fiction from David Hopen
In our latest edition of featured fiction—curated by our own Carolyn Quimby—we’re happy to present an excerpt from David Hopen‘s debut novel, The Orchard.
The book—a coming-of-age tale about a devout Jewish high school student—received praise from the likes of Susan Choi and Shteyngart, as well as starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, with the latter calling the novel “brilliantly conceived and crafted” and “Unforgettable.”
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We were sitting in our living room that evening, after a makeshift dinner of scrambled eggs and several hours unloading boxes, moving furniture, transferring miscellaneous items from one side of the room to the other and back. I was reviewing a page of Talmud with my father when our landline rang. My mother answered; I heard her give loud, exaggerated laughs. Foreign sounds to me.
“Our neighbors,” my mother said, bustling in from the kitchen. “From
