{"product_id":"9781504037631","title":"Tree Surgery for Beginners: A Novel","description":"\u003cb\u003eBestselling British author Patrick Gale chronicles the misadventures of a misfit tree surgeon in this “modern-day myth of self-discovery” (\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It was in the ancient cathedral city of Barrowcester that eight-year-old Lawrence Frost began his love affair with the trees that had “sprung up on the site of an ancient plague grave and unconsecrated resting place for the city’s outcasts.” And it is there that the thirty-two-year-old forester and arborist returns one night, after sleeping out in his truck in his beloved Wumpett Woods, to find blood staining the kitchen sink and floor of his farmhouse—his wife and daughter gone.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Lawrence is suspected of beating his wife, Bonnie, for cheating on him with an American architect. It appears Bonnie and their daughter, Lucy, have done the sensible thing and fled. But when a corpse turns up, burned beyond recognition, the police decide to comb Wumpett Woods in search of a second body. Soon Lawrence is branded a murderer and arrested.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then Bonnie and Lucy turn up alive, and Lawrence is cleared. But he has lost his family. He takes a five-hundred-passenger cruise on the SS \u003ci\u003ePaulina\u003c\/i\u003e, where a chanteuse of a certain age—and uncertain gender—captivates him. Lawrence begins a new journey, a spiritual and erotic odyssey that takes him back to the buried secrets of his past and then onward toward the future.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e From the English provinces to the Caribbean to America—and the giant redwoods of northern California—filled with Shakespearean twists and turns and happy coincidences, \u003ci\u003eTree Surgery for Beginners\u003c\/i\u003e is a sprawling, Dickensian carnival of a book. With multiple viewpoints and cameo appearances that include a vacillating tiger, it sweeps readers along as Lawrence himself learns to move forward.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e By turns moving and tragic, this is a triumphant novel of growth, love, and healing from the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eNotes from an Exhibition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Open Road Media","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145509388528,"sku":"9781504037631","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781504037631_p0.jpg?v=1763715347","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781504037631","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}