Part One Of Two Parts To call St. Cloud a village in the 1920s is to overstate the case -- it's a train station, an orphanage and an abandoned lumber camp. But the place is surprisingly busy, with a steady stream of pregnant women arriving at the station and walking up the long hill to Dr. Wilbur Larch's office at the orphanage. Dr. Larch, to use the local parlance, does both the Lord's work and the Devil's: he delivers unwanted babies and finds homes for them, he also performs abortions. To Dr. Larch these are not two kinds of work but one. This is a novel about orphans and Maine apple orchards and 19th century American morals. Beyond that, it deals with fragility of rules and rituals in everyday life. It also warns that, for basics like falling in love or saving lives, rules seem to offer little validity or comfort.
