As American As Apple Pie and Johnny Appleseed

Two stories about Thanksgiving, an American family holiday in November.

First chapter: On land that traditionally belonged to native people of North America, foreigners were allowed to settle their homesteads. John Chapman, known as Johnny Appleseed, planted apple trees, an invasive species, to establish his claim to land, and sold his homesteads to settlers who arrived later. Apple trees in nature typically produce fruit that is not fit to eat by itself; it may be used to make cider, or rarely apple pies, which create a festive mood. People of the United States of America regard the land as their own, and the apple trees as part of it, duly acquired from its prior owner.

Second chapter: Edward Carpenter, thinking about his estranged daughter Emily and his never-seen grandson Adam, flashes back to his own adolescence.

The second chapter is an assignment that I wrote for high school in 1994: an intertextual chapter for Janette Turner Hospital's novel, The Tiger in the Tiger Pit, containing quotations from William Shakespeare's play, King Lear.

Cover Credit: @PriyaArshiSarun