The Garden of the World
ABOUT
The Garden of the World is the tale of a pioneering winemaking family headed by Paul Tourneau, a fiercely ambitious vintner determined to make the finest wine in California. His plans are disrupted by a phylloxera epidemic at the beginning of the twentieth century, the trials of national Prohibition, and the bitter alienation of his older son. Played out against the vividly depicted seasonal rhythms of a vineyard and winemaking, this is a moving saga of betrayal, loss, and the consequences of ambition.
Reviews
Coates does an admirable job of exploring the bonds between misguided father and prodigal son, all against the backdrop of a fallen American Eden.
Honors
Winner of the 2013 Nancy Dasher Award.
Coates does an admirable job of exploring the bonds between misguided father and prodigal son, all against the backdrop of a fallen American Eden.
—Publishers Weekly
Another novel by Lawrence Coates so magical, aching and complete that once begun I could not turn away.
—Robert OlmsteadLawrence Coates knows California’s Santa Clara Valley, its history and the history of its once-great wine industry, and it permeates every page of his new novel. In The Garden of the World he has created a complex and beautiful story grounded in the reality of the valley’s vinuous past and of the people who helped make this land once “The Valley of Heart’s Delight."
—Charles SullivanCoates ... is part of the literary thrust to recapture and reimagine lost worlds, and we as readers are the better for it. [He] is a unique and significant presence.
—W. Jack Hicks