But you can run only so far, even in America, and when Robert's past makes an unexpected appearance he must decide whether to strike out again or stake his own claim to a home at last. In the redwood and giant sequoia groves he finds some solace, collecting seeds for a naturalist who sells plants from the new world to the gardeners of England. Restless and haunted by the broken family he left behind, he has made his way alone across the country.

James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.ġ853: Their youngest child Robert is wandering through Gold Rush California. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. And as the maple leaves begin to redden and the heat begins to soften, Iyer offers us a singular view of Japan, in the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted.ġ838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck - in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio.

Iyer leads us through the year following his father-in-law's death, introducing us to the people who populate his days: his ailing mother-in-law, who often forgets that her husband has died his absent brother-in-law, who severed ties with his family years ago but to whom Hiroko still writes letters and the men and women in his ping-pong club, who, many years his senior, traverse their autumn years in different ways.

In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, this question is more urgent than anywhere else. But when his father-in-law dies suddenly, calling him back to Japan earlier than expected, Iyer begins to grapple with the question we all have to live with: how to hold on to the things we love, even though we know that we and they are dying. For years, Pico Iyer has split his time between California and Nara, Japan, where he and his Japanese wife, Hiroko, have a small home.

Macintosh roms john barlow