The Cider House Rules

A modern masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.

Witty, tenderhearted, fervent - New York Times
Difficult to define, impossible not to admire - Daily Telegraph
An old-fashioned, big-hearted novel... somewhere between Trollope and Twain - Boston Globe
Superb in scope and originality, a novel as good as one could hope to find from any author - Joseph Heller

The reason Homer Wells kept his name was that he came back to St Cloud's so many times, after so many failed foster homes, that the orphanage was forced to acknowledge Homer's intention to make St Cloud's his home.

Homer Wells' odyssey begins among the apple orchards of rural Maine. As the oldest unadopted child at St Cloud's orphanage, he strikes up a profound and unusual friendship with Wilbur Larch, the orphanage's founder—a man of rare compassion and an addiction to ether. What he learns from Wilbur takes him from his early apprenticeship in the orphanage surgery to an adult life running a cider-making factory and a strange relationship with the wife of his closest friend.