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Reviews and Blurbs |
The Rockland Review
The Rutland (Vt.) Herald
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Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) |
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When the author of this hilarious horticultural memoir
plants a large vegetable garden and a small orchard on his
Hudson Valley farmstead, he finds himself at odds with almost
all creation. At the top of the food chain are the landscaping
contractors, always behind schedule, frequently derelict,
occasionally menacing. Then there are the herds of deer that
batter the electrified fence to get at Alexander's crop, and
the groundhog who simply squeezes between the wires,
apparently savoring the 10,000-volt shocks. Most insidious are
the armies of beetles, worms, maggots and grubs that provoke
Alexander, initially an organic-produce zealot, into drenching
his entire property with pesticides. He braves these trials,
along with hours of backbreaking labor and the eye-rolling of
his wife and children, for the succulence of homegrown food.
He also manages to maintain a sense of humor, riffing on
everything from the ugliness of garden ornaments to the
politics of giving away vegetables to friends. Alexander's
slightly poisoned paradise manages to impart an existential
lesson on the interconnectedness of nature and the fine line
between nurturing and killing. |
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