The Gospel of Trees

The author shares her memories of growing up in Haiti as the daughter of an idealistic missionary, exploring her experiences living in a hospital compound as her family and the country experienced a period of upheaval.

"In this compelling, beautiful memoir, award-winning writer Apricot Irving recounts her childhood as a missionary's daughter in Haiti during a time of upheaval--both in the country and in her home. Apricot Irving grew up as a missionary's daughter in Haiti--a country easy to sensationalize but difficult to understand. Her father was an agronomist, a man who hiked alone into the hills with a macouti of seeds to preach the gospel of trees in a deforested but resilient country. Her mother and sisters, meanwhile, spent most of their days in the confines of the hospital compound they called home. As a child, this felt like paradise to Irving; as a teenager, the same setting felt like a prison. Outside of the walls of the missionary enclave, Haiti was a tumult of bugle-call bus horns and bicycles that jangled over hard-packed dirt, the clamor of chickens and cicadas, the sudden, insistent clatter of rain as it hammered across tin roofs and the swell of voices running ahead of the storm..." -- Publisher's description