In Full Bloom

By Paul Gray

We have a limited tolerance for the history of real families other than our own. The exceptions to this rule crop up when the clan in question is particularly influential or glamorous--the Kennedys, Rothschilds, folks of that ilk--or when a family chronicler comes along who can tell tales so irresistibly engaging that the boundary between personal lore and public interest dissolves. That is what Nomi Eve accomplishes in The Family Orchard (Knopf; 316 pages; $25), a first novel in the form of an extended genealogy of the author's forebears, covering some 160 years.

Well, someone is likely to protest, if this is supposed to be history, why is it presented as a novel? That is, as far as it goes, a fair response. Short of a longstanding personal friendship with the author, readers of this book have no way of determining whether any of the people and events in The Family Orchard have any historical reality or, for that matter, any genuine connection to the real Nomi Eve. But she anticipates this question of authenticity and announces her answer at the beginning: "I believe that fiction is formed truth. I believe that history is a way of knowing all of this. I believe that legend is how we read between the lines."

Her first chapter displays the narrative strategy she will employ throughout. A passage under the heading "My Father Writes" reads, "Rabbi Yochanan Schine, a student of the famous Chatam Sofer, was engaged to Esther Sophie Goldner Herschell, the granddaughter of the chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Esther and Yochanan were my great-great-grandparents. They migrated to Palestine and married in 1837 in Jerusalem." Under the heading "I Write," Eve tells the story of Esther's infatuation, in Jerusalem, with a baker and the nine-year love affair that ensues, with, almost from its inception, her husband's knowledge: "Yochanan knew that he would not mention what he had seen to his wife but that she knew that he knew and that this was to be their secret."

This odd, mystical communion between husband and wife comes to seem an almost heritable trait in succeeding generations of this temporally extended family. When Avra, Yochanan and Esther's granddaughter and a practicing kleptomaniac, marries Shimon, who has come to Palestine from Russia, she tells him of her many past thefts and adds, truthfully, that she invariably returned the stolen goods, although not always to their rightful owners. Shimon is at first shocked and appalled and then fascinated. He asks her for more details, and she obliges, spinning stories about the places where the objects she stole originated. As they nestle together in bed, "Avra talked them all over the world." Still later, Zohar discovers some ancient mosaic tiles in his citrus grove, and he and his wife Miriam regale themselves at night by imagining the people--Phoenicians, Judeans, Canaanites, Greeks--who may have walked on these stones.

The "My Father Writes" sections provide a thumbnail history of Palestine from the 19th century Turkish rulers through British rule after World War I up to the creation of Israel and beyond. The "I Write" portions flesh out this story with some of the people who lived and loved and died in the interim. The father's segments can be checked in reference books; the daughter's must stand or fall on their own.

They stand, thanks to Eve's powers of poetic evocation. This is not a matter of flowery language but rather of powerful metaphors, the fusing of multiple meanings into a few words. Take the title. The Family Orchard refers to a grove of citrus trees in the stories and also alludes to the term "the family tree." An orchard consists of artificially cultivated trees. "People are supposed to graft," a citrus grower tells his sons. "Part of our partnership in creation." This book is an example of the partnership it celebrates.

--By Paul Gray