In the Orchard, the Swallows

By Peter Hobbs

During a village wedding in Pakistan, an unnamed boy risks speaking to the beautiful daugther of a powerful local politician. As night falls, the two meet in his father's orchard, inadvertently falling asleep waiting for the light of dawn to reveal the orchard's beauty, naïve to the dangers that await their innocent mistake.
As first light approaches, and the girl's father realizes the young couple's mutual attraction, he imprisons the boy without explanation or the benefit of a trial. Fifteen years later, the boy—now a man—is released without a word. Bereft of family and weakened from years of abuse, he collapses on the side of the road and is taken in by a kindly scholar. As time passes, the man recovers enough to take daily walks to his father's now abandoned orchard, where he last saw his young beloved among the trees, beneath soaring, fluttering swallows.

In clear, crystalline prose, Peter Hoobs reveals the ability of the human spirit to conquer the random cruelties of life, and how the power of love and hope, once known, can never truly be extinguished.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Feb 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781609451936

Peter Hobbs

PETER HOBBS grew up in Cornwall and Yorkshire, and now lives in London. He is the award-winning author of two novels, The Short Day Dying and In the Orchard, the Swallows, as well as a collection of short stories, I Could Ride All Day in My Cool Blue Train. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a writer-in-residence for the literacy charity First Story.

Reviews for In the Orchard, the Swallows

[viccavalli · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel affirms the human need to hold fast to the possibility of love and beauty against the overwhelming forces of circumstance and history, which like a tidal wave threaten the human heart with annihilation. The few minutes of nectar-like bliss the narrator experiences with Saba are like seeds planted in the narrator's soul, and these seeds will come to fruition as the gift of the text itself to Saba, regardless of her reality.

[heatherlinc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This short novel was basically an extended letter from the protagonist to his forbidden sweetheart, Saba. After fifteen years of imprisonment, illness, abuse and torture, the young slowly starts to recover, and in a small garden he writes to his beloved about the present and the years that have separated them. Each day he visits his family's old orchard where he finds peace and contentment.I loved Abbas, the poet, who took the young man in and tended to his physical and emotional injuries. His gentleness and kindness played a key role in the healing process."In the Orchard, the Swallows" was a gentle, heart-breaking story about love, survival and the human condition. The last chapter, especially, was absolutely beautiful.

[edwinbcn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the orchard, the swallows is not just a simple love story, although just such a simple love story forms the basis of this cruel tale. In the orchard, the swallows is a modern Romeo and Juliet set in modern time in Pakistan. Not death, but spiritual death separates the lovers. The young man thrown into prison, which he barely survives, to be forgotten, cut off from the world, his love, and father, who dies during his imprisonment. Upon his release, he is nursed back, taken into the home by an old man. Recovering, pensively, he writes this heart-rending account of life in a note-book. His cruel experience is transient, while love, cruelty, human nature, and nature are for ever.In the orchard, the swallows contains beautiful descriptions of nature, the orchard, and the soothing presence of the swallows, perhaps a symbol of homeliness. Some parts of the book consist of telling, or lamenting monologues, which are a little bit overbearing. The setting in Pakistan is a bit estranging, but apparently rendered quite convincingly and true.

[proustitute_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Abandoned.

I am obviously a fan of poetic novels, so I was eager to read this when reviews cited its poetic style and how psychologically resonant the interior life, musings, and grief of the narrator were rendered.

I found the latter to be the book's strength; however, I could no longer read after the midway point due to what felt like trite and contrived prose. The pacing and style felt almost as if the book were directed to young adult audiences, and that's not a genre I read at all.

Perhaps Ali Smith's praise for this novel set my expectations too high. Perhaps I'm just not in a sappy, love-lost kind of mood.

[seven.stories.press · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More an extended prose poem than a novel, this slim volume offers a heart-wrenching account of young love, unthinkable sadness, and haunting questions that may never be answered.