Luanne Rice is well
known to readers of women's fiction. She has written 31 novels, most of them
best-sellers, and five novels became movies or miniseries.
"The Lemon
Orchard," her newest work, may include romance, but that is only
the beginning.
The relationship kindled between Julia, a grieving mother who is
house-sitting at a lemon orchard in Malibu, and Roberto, the orchard manager,
is based on their mutual experience of tragic loss.
Roberto is the guilt-ridden father
of a child he was forced to abandon while crossing through the desert enroute
to the U.S. Julia has lost her daughter in a horrific car accident. Their shared pain
crosses the societal barrier between a quiet, cautious American woman and an
illegal immigrant making his way in this country. Julia's sympathy for
Roberto's loss, and her skills as a cultural anthropologist, lead her to a
search for the long-missing child, even though it has been five years since the
incident.
Don't mistake this
for a simple, uncomplicated romance; it is not. Rice portrays the tragic
circumstances endured by impoverished Mexicans crossing into the U.S. in
dangerous conditions and deadly heat, taken advantage of by unscrupulous "guides" and the
occasionally cruel border patrol officer.
This picture is not a pretty one, but
it well details the conditions leading to illegal migration and continued
residence in our country. The risks these people take are harrowing and very
affecting to those unfamiliar with the realities of U.S. border enforcement.
Julia and
Roberto ignore the mild disapproval of society about their relationship, and focus on recovering love, amid the crippling
world of pain inherited by parents who have lost children—a devastating grief
and self-blame that overrides anything else that follows.
Rice has written "The
Lemon Orchard" with simple truth, careful research and a voice that speaks
for common decency amid the indifference of law. She has related the arguments
for and against illegal immigration to the experiences of characters in her
book. The outcome may move you to the other side of the "moral" fence
on this matter.
"There has always been migration. That
goes without saying when you have a rich country like ours sharing a border
with a country as poor as Mexico," says a fictional member of the Reunion
Project, a real organization which attempts to link those lost in the process
of migration to those who seek them. "... The U.S. wants to protect the
border." Where the two sides intersect, there is death.
Penguin Books
published this novel in paperback and released it May 27. To learn more about
Luanne Rice, see her website at www.luannerice.com.
