This novel is historical fiction that takes place almost entirely over 5 days in 1966, as Finch Macy returns to Macy Ranch in a valley named for his family, located on the eastern edge of California’s Central Coast Range. Hed spent his summer of morning south in Los Angeles, with their two daughters raising their own families now. Macy Canyon was once a valley covered with Macy Ranch apple, apricot and pear orchards, though by 1966, East Orchard and mighty West Orchard spread over a quarter of the valley, with Old Orchard adjacent to their old Victorian ranch house, spread over less than a hundred additional acres. Finch is disappointed his daughters choose to stay in Southern California after UCLA and USC, and he’s distressed over their younger brother, at Cal Poly halfway between Los Angeles and Macy Ranch, who shows no interest in orchard ranching. Upon returning to Macy Canyon, Finch finds the valley is filled with gossip about his summer of morning; impossible rumors, he clearly overhears in Macy Market and Macy Hardware, since hes unrecognized by most now living in his own valley from the moment he was born in the second story of their old Victorian. Back home at Macy Ranch, hes found condolence cards and plastic flowers pilled up on front porchs coffee table, used exclusively for beer cans and whiskey bottle until these months since June. Finch realizes even as lonely as the ranch house was his first evening back from Los Angeles, he’d rather be left along with his ranch dog, Ebner, whos just been returned to Macy Ranch from the black labs own summer of morning over at Finchs only good friends brand new home, purchased with proceeds from selling their orchard ranch merely twice the size of Old Orchard. Those whove bought and developed Takahashi Ranch, changed the name to Redwood Ranch, feeling The War will never be over for most home buyers, filled with black and white images all the way to Nagasaki without a single internment camp.
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