GRAFTING

Two young men pursue a furtive romance in conservative rural New England.

Set largely in 2004 and 2005, Hynes’ sensual debut turns on the arrival of 17-year-old Chris Hartley with his parents in Spaulding, Maine. Chris’ recent coming out as gay scandalized his barely tolerant father, a Methodist minister, prompting a move to a new church in a new state. There, Chris meets Eben Turner, the teenage scion of a family famous for its orchard and the apple that bears its name. What follows echoes a host of familiar LGBTQ+ romance tropes: secret trysts, unaccepting parents, a defiant happily-ever-after. But the story is elevated by Hynes’ rich prose and well-rendered details about grafting different trees to grow new varieties of apples (hence the novel’s title); fine art (a famous painter commemorated the orchard and Eben’s grandfather), and (especially) religion. Though Chris bristles against his strict parents, his interest in religion leads him to explore the likely homosexuality of King James VI (of King James Bible fame), and his passion is echoed by Eben’s own care for the life of the orchard. Religious symbolism abounds, from the apple tree to the characters’ very names—Eben and Chris aren’t far from Eden and Christ—and Hynes powerfully disrupts any gentility in the language with unflinching scenes of the brutality of deep-seated homophobia. Braiding chapters alternately narrated by Chris and Eben, the book evokes “Brokeback Mountain,” Call Me by Your Name, and Gilead, and if the plot doesn’t quite elevate the novel to the level of those classics, it’s a fine debut and a rich portrait of the fierceness and intensity of first love and futile attempts to stand in its way.

An earthy, lyrical love story.