Apricot Irving

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Oregon

A Memoir

In an “eye-opening memoir” (People) “as beautiful as it is discomfiting” (The New Yorker), award-winning writer Apricot Irving untangles her youth on a missionary compound in Haiti. Apricot Irving grew up as a missionary’s daughter in Haiti. Her father was an agronomist, a man who hiked alone into the deforested hills to preach the gospel of trees. Her mother and sisters spent their days in the confines of the hospital compound they called home. As a child, this felt like paradise to Irving; as a teenager, it became a prison. Outside of the walls of the missionary enclave, Haiti was a tumult of bugle-call bus horns and bicycles that jangled over hard-packed dirt, road blocks and burning tires triggered by political upheaval, the clatter of rain across tin roofs, and the swell of voices running ahead of the storm. Poignant and explosive, Irving weaves a portrait of a missionary family that is unflinchingly honest: her father’s unswerving commitment to his mission, her mother’s misgivings about his loyalty, the brutal history of colonization. Drawing from research, interviews, and journals—her parents’ as well as her own—this memoir in many voices evokes a fractured family finding their way to kindness through honesty. Told against the backdrop of Haiti’s long history of intervention, it grapples with the complicated legacy of those who wish to improve the world, while bearing witness to the defiant beauty of an undefeated country. A lyrical meditation on trees and why they matter, loss and privilege, love and failure. The Gospel of Trees is a “lush, emotional debut...A beautiful memoir that shows how a family altered by its own ambitious philanthropy might ultimately find hope in their faith and love for each other, and for Haiti.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

The Gospel of Trees

4aa94d00-afe5-44f8-9b46-76733d29620a-1

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Kentucky

In this compelling, beautiful memoir, award-winning writer Apricot Irving recounts her childhood as a missionary's daughter in Haiti during a time of upheaval--both in the country and in her home.

Apricot Irving grew up as a missionary's daughter in Haiti--a country easy to sensationalize but difficult to understand. Her father was an agronomist, a man who hiked alone into the hills with a macouti of seeds to preach the gospel of trees in a deforested but resilient country. Her mother and sisters, meanwhile, spent most of their days in the confines of the hospital compound they called home. As a child, this felt like paradise to Irving; as a teenager, the same setting felt like a prison. Outside of the walls of the missionary enclave, Haiti was a tumult of bugle-call bus horns and bicycles that jangled over hard-packed dirt, the clamor of chickens and cicadas, the sudden, insistent clatter of rain as it hammered across tin roofs and the swell of voices running ahead of the storm.

As she emerges into womanhood, an already confusing process made all the more complicated by Christianity's demands, Irving struggles to understand her father's choices. His unswerving commitment to his mission, and the anger and despair that followed failed enterprises, threatened to splinter his family.

Beautiful, poignant, and explosive, The Gospel of Trees is the story of a family crushed by ideals, and restored to kindness by honesty. Told against the backdrop of Haiti's long history of intervention--often unwelcome--it grapples with the complicated legacy of those who wish to improve the world. Drawing from family letters, cassette tapes, journals, and interviews, it is an exploration of missionary culpability and idealism, told from within.

Category - Non Fiction / Family & Relationships

Format - Paperback

Condition - New

Listed - 6 months ago

Views - 4

Ships From - Oregon

Est. Publication Date - May 2019

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The Gospel of Trees: A Memoir

ISBN: 9781451690460

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Category - Non Fiction / Family & Relationships

Format - Paperback

Condition - New

Listed - 6 months ago

Views - 4

Ships From - Oregon

Est. Publication Date - May 2019

Additional Information

The Gospel of Trees: A Memoir

ISBN: 9781451690460

Publisher Description

Tags

The Gospel of Trees

By:

$5.00

Meet the seller

Discover more

The Gospel of Trees

By: Apricot Irving

More from this seller

Additional titles by Apricot Irving

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