Hive-Mind

Evoking the lyrical precision of Annie Dillard and the exquisite food writing of M.F.K. Fisher, Gabrielle Myers takes us on a Northern California idyll through her 2006 internship at the Tip Top Farm and Produce in Vacaville. Here, the beauty of the land – light streaming through fig branches, carnelian tomatoes exploding in front of rows of sweet peas – is tended by the mysterious frenetic Farmer and her interns, Baker and Chef. Their days are filled with back-breaking farm labor, but their nights are alive with the freshest, most creative meals imaginable. At night, Gabi lies in her yurt pondering her mother’s suicide attempt, working on stories to tell herself to make it all right, while just up the hill another mind, busy as a hive, fights a storm of loss and sorrow that threatens to shatter Eden. And what of these stories do we tell ourselves? Myers asks. Sometimes, they can’t be rewritten.