Wild Apples

By (author): Wayne Curtis

There is a dreamlike quality to many of the stories in this new collection from Wayne Curtis. In Wild Apples, he returns to familiar themes of love and longing, and the push-pull emotions which inevitably accompany any attempt to break free of the ties that bind. Simple pleasures abound in these evocative stories, be it fishing on the river, gathering beans for an evening supper (are they beans or has-beens?), or listening to the jukebox at the local diner.

Curtis mines the shaft of everyday experiences, turning each one into a meditation on human nature. In the title story, an afternoon drive yields fertile ground as a father and son stop to shake down a gnarled crab apple tree for the sweet-sour orbs of autumn. With a seemingly effortless style, he casts his line into the river of the past, reeling in tales of youthful folly, the Christmastime birth of a little sister, and life on the Miramichi River, which could be any river, anywhere. Curtis also shares his insight into well-known friends, including novelist David Adams Richards and Yvon Durelle, the Fighting Fisherman. His contemplation of the life and work of Robert Frost casts a fresh light on the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

AUTHOR

Wayne Curtis

Wayne Curtis was born in Keenan, New Brunswick, on the banks of the Miramichi River. He was educated at the local schoolhouse and at St. Thomas University. He started writing prose in the late 1960s. His essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, Outdoor Canada, Fly Fishermen, and the Atlantic Salmon Journal.

Reviews

Wild Apples: Field Notes from a River Farm marks Wayne Curtis’s return to the embrace of home and the colourful lives of the people who inspire him. Simple pleasures like fishing on the Miramichi River and chores like cutting wood, planting beans, and picking crabapples take on new depths of meaning in the telling. The birth of his sister at Christmastime, the story of his mother in her own words, and a memorable trip to the circus recall unexpected moments of family love.

These personal essays are a poetic blend of fiction and biography, rich in imagery and uncompromising in their emotional honesty. Taken together, they reveal the bittersweet story of a childhood both blessed and burdened with family tradition and obligations, of dizzying love and loss, and of a young man’s struggle to change the patterns of the past.


“Happy picking.”
Globe and Mail

Wild Apples is a volume mixed with appropriate portions of nostalgia, memory, and love for a time that will never return.”
Daily Gleaner

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There is a dreamlike quality to many of the stories in this new collection from Wayne Curtis. In Wild Apples, he returns to familiar themes of love and longing, and the push-pull emotions which inevitably accompany any attempt to break free of the ties that bind. Simple pleasures abound in these evocative stories, be it fishing on the river, gathering beans for an evening supper (are they beans or has-beens?), or listening to the jukebox at the local diner.

Curtis mines the shaft of everyday experiences, turning each one into a meditation on human nature. In the title story, an afternoon drive yields fertile ground as a father and son stop to shake down a gnarled crab apple tree for the sweet-sour orbs of autumn. With a seemingly effortless style, he casts his line into the river of the past, reeling in tales of youthful folly, the Christmastime birth of a little sister, and life on the Miramichi River, which could be any river, anywhere. Curtis also shares his insight into well-known friends, including novelist David Adams Richards and Yvon Durelle, the Fighting Fisherman. His contemplation of the life and work of Robert Frost casts a fresh light on the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

166 Pages
8in * 5.5in * 0.4in
215gr

Published:

October 27, 2006

Publisher:

Goose Lane Editions

ISBN:

9780864924858

9780864926104 – EPUB

Book Subjects:

NATURE / Essays

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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