Love, Like Apples

De: Jeff Zentner

For readers of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Kristin Hannah, the lyrical, deeply felt story of an artist and the great love that defined his life, set against the electric, delirious backdrop of 1970s New York City and the tumultuous years prior.

Growing up motherless and under the cruel eye of his alcoholic, emotionally distant father, Tiller Loomis seemed destined for a hardscrabble life. In the 1960s, the small Appalachian town of Sawyer, Tennessee offered few opportunities outside of working arduous hours on his family’s apple orchard. The one ray of light was his older brother Smith, a compassionate and gentle boy who salvages what might have otherwise been a brutal childhood. Kindness, he teaches Tiller, is a choice.

But when Smith is drafted into the Vietnam War, Tiller’s world collapses. Directionless and grief-stricken, he stumbles into a children’s puppet show at his church and ultimately finds purpose and joy through the strange, tender art of puppetry. Chasing his dream of puppeteering full time, Tiller lands in the gritty, graffitied, bohemian hothouse of 1977 New York City, where experimental artists and misfit idealists are using puppets to try to reach teens with a message of hope on a PBS show called Imagine Nation.

In Imagine Nation’s cast, Tiller finds a chosen family of dreamers and creators who will change his life forever, chief among whom is the beautiful Julie DiFrancesca, a fiercely vivacious woman who offers Tiller a chance at a life he never thought possible.

Narratively framed as a present-day documentary production about Imagine Nation, LOVE, LIKE APPLES takes us from the 1970s into the modern era, tracing how the ripples from one controversial but forgotten TV show and a complicated love affair continue outward over decades, while also exploring the indelible power of radical empathy and the lives of the artists who carry its flame in their hearts.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Love, Like Apples is an intimate epic of creators and creativity, culture and counterculture, love (of course) and loss, written—beautifully, I might add, sentence by sentence—with a heartfelt earnestness that I found utterly disarming right from the first pages. Jeff Zentner has persuasively brought back to detailed life the final decades of the twentieth century and peopled his novel with an array of characters you'll find yourself caring about and rooting for."—Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English

PRAISE FOR JEFF ZENTNER AND COLTON GENTRY'S THIRD ACT

"Colton Gentry's Third Act by Jeff Zentner is a fantastic book filled with incredible characters. Country music star Colton Gentry's life is going perfectly, until the death of his close friend and a Jim Beam-fueled speech he gives while on stage at a giant show has Colton returning to his hometown in Kentucky. It's there that Colton reconnects with Luann, the first woman he ever loved, and has him thinking that maybe his best days aren't all behind him quite yet. Told through three alternating timelines—high school, his rise to fame, and the present—Colton Gentry's Third Act is a novel packed with feels that will have you laughing while reading one page and then crying while reading the next. A beautiful story of love, growth, and second (or, you know, third, fourth, sometimes fifth) chances, you'll be cheering Colton on right through the book's fantastic end."—Isaac Fitzgerald, TODAY Show

"Jeff Zentner has a knack for finding poetry in everyday situations. . .The narrative weaves between Colton’s come-up, adolescence, and present, stitching heartbreak, grief, and hope into one devastating arc that will leave a smile on your face even as it draws out a tear."—Vanity Fair

“Reading Colton Gentry's Third Act feels like sitting down with old friends to your favorite home-cooked meal, reminiscing late into the night and laughing giddily by the time the sun comes up. It's warm and comforting, and brimming with a heady nostalgia that will transport you right back to your own youthful summers and life-changing firsts. A story of love, healing, and second chances that's not to be missed.” —Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read and Book Lovers

“Country music was born to tell stories and so was Jeff Zentner. Colton Gentry's Third Act is fueled by a broken heart, and a determination to heal through hard work, forgiveness, and grit—just like the very best country songs. Keep this one on repeat.”—Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants