"Alone" and "lonely" aren't the same thing
Kerri Miller's Must-Read
"The Excellent Lombards"by Jane Hamilton
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A few years ago, I talked Jane Hamilton into letting me visit her farm in rural Wisconsin. I was — and still am — working on a series about the places that inspire a writer’s imagination.
She welcomed a photographer and me into a farmhouse that was open and full of light, and she showed us her writing room on the second floor. Her desk is framed by generous windows that look out onto the apple orchard that surrounds the house.
We were there in late summer and the trees were fragrant and full of fruit.
Hamilton’s new novel is set on an apple farm, and when I read the vivid description of the orchard that opens chapter three, I was immediately back on those Wisconsin hillsides, among the trees.
“Home we went over the wooded hills. The last glacier coming down into Wisconsin had stopped just south of us, dumping its remaining load of gravel, ideal country for an apple orchard, the soil rich enough, the drainage superb,” Hamilton writes.
The book already has a fan in Ann Patchett, who writes: “This is the book Jane Hamilton was born to write.” I think that’s true, and I can't wait to discuss the book with Hamilton on April 19.
-K.M.
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The Thread Live 2016: Full scheduleGet event details
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