Ellie Trotta took her daughter to a park one day. A park she used to go to when she was a little girl. As she watched her daughter play with friends, she remembered playing in the same place with her four friends who she barely remembered now. They were still in touch, in that they knew each others' email addresses and occasionally "saw" each other on Facebook. But of course it wasn't the same.
It made Ellie wonder.... What if they had to see each other? What if they were at the playground again? Would they play as they did when they were little?
What if the five of you had to see each other every five years? What if you had made a pact to return to your park (or garden) on a special day every five years?
What if that park (or garden) was more than what it appeared to be? What if it contained some kind of magic, something that only you five could access?
Paradise, or what we think of as paradise: It is always a garden, isn't it? And why not? Gardens make us think of vibrant roses bathed in sunlight, fresh air, and carefree people. In Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic, The Secret Garden, the heroine, Mary Lennox, was born anew when she found her garden on the edge of a moaning moor (if there's a key, there must be a door!) There, much like the characters in Ellie’s story, Burnett’s heroine had friends, among whom she learned to laugh and clear the cobwebs of her mind. A garden with a door is an odd idea of a place of freedom, for if there's a door, there must be walls, and that feels more like confinement than paradise. And yet the only walls around Ellie Trotta's Garden in Eden are the walls of time and space. Ellie’s garden seems physically boundless; every five years, when they play in it again, her characters find some nook and cranny they had never noticed before. But again, the walls are ones of time and space; it is only five individuals who gain access, only one day (July 6) and only once every five years. When they enter, they are ten years old, the age at which they first entered, again. It would seem also that when they die they reenter the garden eternally.
Trotta has created a town called Eden. It's an All American town where the popular girls become cheerleaders and the varsity players they date become town heroes. But there is a darker side of Eden. Lurking in the shadows, there are unspoken passions, forbidden fruits, desperate acts of rebellion, of escape from pain.... Alexmarie, Ralphie, Royal, Miles, and Daisy have little in common except for the love of their garden. They reunite every five years, on July 6, to be ten years old again in their secret garden; but then the day is over and each goes back to his/her own life. It is only Alexmarie who seems to have any kind of fulfillment in her life; yet even she, having achieved all the boxes of a supposed good life, seems longing for something more. Ralphie, too, has a satisfying career, yet is perpetually unable to speak honestly to the girl he's loved ever since he first saw her climb a tree. Is the garden where we are meant to be, where potential or ideal self becomes actualized, or even perhaps where we can "do over" what we regretted in the corporeal realm? An allegory for death, perhaps, or an allegory for the best lived life?
Besides Amazon, either for paperback or kindle, you can buy a copy of A Garden in Eden at the following online retailers: Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and many more: https://bit.ly/agardenineden.