Treeborne, Caleb Johnson
Treeborne, Caleb Johnson
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
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Treeborne
A Novel

Author: Caleb Johnson

Narrator: Courtney Patterson

Unabridged: 11 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/05/2018


Synopsis

"I can’t remember the last time I read a book I wish so much I’d written. Treeborne is beautiful, and mythic in ways I would never have been able to imagine...I can’t say enough about this book."—Daniel Wallace, national bestselling author of Extraordinary Adventures and Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions

From Caleb Johnson comes a debut audiobook about an unusual family who have made their home at the margins of an unusual place.

Janie Treeborne lives on an orchard at the edge of Elberta, Alabama, and in time, she has become its keeper. A place where conquistadors once walked, and where the peaches they left behind now grow, Elberta has seen fierce battles, violent storms, and frantic change—and when the town is once again threatened from without, Janie realizes it won’t withstand much more.

So she tells the story of its people: of Hugh, her granddaddy, determined to preserve Elberta’s legacy at any cost; of his wife, Maybelle, the postmaster, whose sudden death throws the town into chaos; of her lover, Lee Malone, a black orchardist harvesting from a land where he is less than welcome; of the time when Janie kidnapped her own Hollywood-obsessed aunt and tore the wrong people apart.

As the world closes in on Elberta, Caleb Johnson’s debut audiobook lifts the veil and offers one last glimpse. Treeborne is a celebration and a reminder: of how the past gets mixed up in thoughts of the future; of how home is a story as much as a place.

About Caleb Johnson

CALEB JOHNSON is the author of the novel Treeborne. He grew up in Arley, AL, studied journalism at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and earned an MFA from the University of Wyoming. Johnson has worked as a newspaper reporter, a janitor and a whole-animal butcher, among other jobs. He has been awarded a Jentel Writing Residency and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He lives with his wife, Irina, and their dog, Hugo, in Valle Crucis, NC, where he teaches at Appalachian State University while working on his next novel.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Angel on March 17, 2018

Treeborne is an achievement. It has the fearlessness of a first novel but it is told with dizzying skill. There were many choices which puzzled me initially, but by the last page, I understood that it was all laid down just as messy and perfect as life. It's a book that begs to be re-read. The life......more

Goodreads review by Janelle Janson on June 15, 2018

Thank you so much to Picador for providing my free copy of TREEBORNE by Caleb Johnson - all opinions are my own. The story centers around three generations of the Treeborne family and their relationship with beautiful Elberta, Alabama. The story is rooted in Southern vernacular and is told in a serie......more

Goodreads review by Bonnye Reed on June 05, 2018

GNab This debut novel is classic southern - Caleb Johnson can take his place among the best of them. He brings us angst and anger as well as love and laughter, and it all fits neatly into the background of small town boredom and anti-miscegenation laws. Although it would be hard to be bored in Johns......more

Goodreads review by Donna on March 23, 2019

My review for New York Journal of Books [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Lolly K Dandeneau on June 11, 2018

via my blog: [URL not allowed] 'What makes an Elberta so sweet, Lee Malone knew, is how long it’s allowed to trouble the tree.' Could that be true of Janie Treeborne too, being allowed to trouble her own land? This southern fiction debut begins with Janie Treeborne refusing to lea......more