Unexpected Friendship: Barbara Monier

In my fourth novel, The Rocky Orchard, the bulk of the book centers around the unlikely friendship between two women – one young and the other elderly. The book’s lead character Mazie stands on the porch of her family’s second home in the mountains of rural Pennsylvania the morning after she has arrived there. 

Awash in a flood of thoughts and memories, movement at the far end of the orchard catches her eye. Mazie watches as the shape of an older woman emerges through the branches of the ancient apple trees in the rocky orchard of the book’s title, and the woman slowly makes her way nearer to where Mazie stands on the porch.

At first, Mazie is frightened and bewildered that a person appears to be walking directly through her family’s property, trespassing. But Mazie has ample time to watch the woman, first glimpsing her head full of snow white hair, then the cotton print dress that reminds Mazie of her own grandmother, her worn shoes and mismatched socks, and finally, the fact that the women leans so heavily on her cane as she makes her way along. 

By the time the older woman – whose name turns out to be Lula – looks up and sees Mazie standing on the porch, Mazie’s initial wariness – the lifelong feeling of her ears having caught fire that tells Mazie she is anxious – has already begun to dissipate. When Lula raises her cane and shouts out, “Oh, hello, dear!” with complete lack of self-consciousness, Mazie finds that her distrust has very nearly vanished, and her curiosity has been piqued be this disarming, appealing woman. 

The exact age difference between Mazie and Lula is never stipulated in The Rocky Orchard. The reader needs to do the math his/herself to determine that Mazie is twenty-six in the section of the book that is almost entirely a series of conversations and outings that Mazie and Lula undertake together. Lula’s age is not specified, but we know enough from the original description to understand that their age difference is likely to be nearly fifty years.  

The idea of an unexpected and unlikely friendship – and being open to that possibility – stands as a theme in the novel.

The friendship between Mazie and Lula evolves gradually and naturally, moving from their daily greeting while Lula takes her morning walk, to Mazie’s suggestion that Lula may want to stop for brief rest, to the women’s discovery of their mutual love of card games and the decision to play gin rummy each day. 

Whereas the friendship between the women is entirely unique to the two of them, it is also meant to be understood as universal. In other words, the women’s friendship is meant to demonstrate that the whole of a genuinely good relationship is truly greater than the sum of its parts.  

There are many themes at work in The Rocky Orchard, but perhaps the most compelling one – and one that stands as a core belief of mine – is the idea that there are some kinds of understanding that cannot be done alone, as an individual. There are ways in which we can understand and experience both ourselves and the world differently and more deeply only when there is another person on the journey with us. The other person can be a romantic partner, a best friend, a therapist, anyone whom we trust and have the strong sense that they’re really paying attention, and that they care.

We’ve all had the experience of going to a party or some other type of large gathering where there’s opportunity to talk with lots of different people; and we find there’s that one (or maybe more!) person that we feel powerfully drawn to. Everything just “clicks,” the conversation flows, and we feel both exhilarated and comfortably calm. 

That’s the way Mazie feels with Lula, despite the fact that Mazie has understood herself to be an anxious, somewhat odd and fearful person all her life. She trusts her feeling of being drawn to Lula.  She lets herself fall into this unexpected and unusual friendship, and the reward – well, you have to read the book to learn about that.  Let’s just say the rewards are rich, indeed.

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Barbara Monier has been writing since her earliest days when she composed in crayon on paper with extremely wide lines. She studied writing at Yale University and the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, she received the Avery and Jule Hopwood Prize. It was the highest prize awarded that year and the first in Michigan’s history for a piece written directly for the screen. THE ROCKY ORCHARD is the latest of her four novels. PUSHING THE RIVER, YOU, IN YOUR GREEN SHIRT and A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME (available on Amazon) are her previous titles.

Find out more about her on her website https://barbaramonierauthor.com/

Follow Barbara on Twitter https://twitter.com/BarbaraMonier

THE ROCKY ORCHARD

Why has Mazie returned to her old farm—her family’s summer home and a pivotal refuge throughout her life?

While there, Mazie meets and befriends an elderly woman. Mazie is adrift on a sea of memory as she gazes toward the rocky orchard above the farmhouse when movement in the far distance captures her attention. Lula emerges eerily from the morning fog, and a gentle, cautiously loving relationship between youth and old age begins.

As the two women meet each morning to play cards, Mazie considers the shape of her life and the nature of her recollections through stories she tells to her new, older friend. The women travel together through Mazie’s stories as if they are tentatively feeling their way through the stony risks hidden by the mist beneath the apple trees. Like a vision that disappears into the distance, it becomes increasingly unclear exactly what events in Mazie’s life caused her to return to the farm. And as she explores the illusory intersection of past, present and future, Mazie begins to question whether it was, in fact, a coincidence that Lula came into view one cool morning—and whether anything she believes or feels is real.

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