Jackson Taylor
The Green Pear is the second book in The Harrisburg Trilogy, following The Blue Orchard.In the high-fashion modeling world of the late 1950’s, Peggy Drexler-Leighton is a sought-after face. But as the 1960’s advance, she finds herself looking at a difficult future in an industry that rarely promotes maturing women. When her beloved husband dies suddenly, she in grief decides it’s time to leave New York City and return to Pennsylvania, her home state. Peggy, accompanied by her son Walker, soon finds life in Harrisburg, not to be as easy as was hoped.We then follow Walker as he progresses through various schools, struggling to identify himself to himself, as a young adult enduring increasingly grown-up circumstances. By the early 1990’s he has moved to Italy, where he looks for love and acceptance in unusual pairings. The arrival of his Harrisburg cousin, Lydia, wrenches him toward a disruption that finally forces a revolutionary reckoning.In The Green Pear, Walker and his mother witness rapidly changing times, the old ways of crinolines and cardigans, giving way to the incredible expansion of electronics. On the eve of the internet takeover, the new barrage of twenty-four-hour news and entertainment media shakes the Italian Riviera’s ex-pat world, leaving everyone struggling to adapt.
