A friendless orphan turned middle-aged drifter finds a lasting refuge in Shena MacKay’s curiously eccentric and warm-hearted novel
The Orchard on Fire
Written by Shena Mackay
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 1996
- Published by Virago
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The nostalgia in Shena Mackay’s unsettling evocation of a 1950s childhood is stifled when innocence is damaged by domestic violence and sexual abuse
In 1953, April Harlency is eight years old and new to the town of Stonebridge. Her parents run a tearoom, and April becomes friends with a girl named Ruby, whose parents run a pub. However, April is also subjected to the unwanted attentions of the sinister Mr Greenridge. Ruby, in the meantime, is being beaten by her father.
Shena Mackay
Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh. Her writing career began when she won a prize for a poem written when she was 14
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