"Last fall I was eating wild apples, and a close friend of mine was slowly dying," begins The Ghost Orchard, a new nonfiction book from Helen Humphreys. From this intimate moment, with the knowledge of her friend's terminal diagnosis always at her back, Humphreys embarks on a long-winding journey to learn about the history of the apple in North America — one that is characterized by conflict, poetry and epic ocean crossings.

Below, the celebrated novelist of books like The Evening Chorus and Afterimage tells CBC Books about three things that inspired The Ghost Orchard.

"I was first inspired to write The Ghost Orchard by the discovery of a delicious tasting apple growing wild on an abandoned property close to home. In trying to pinpoint the exact variety of apple, I became fascinated by the sheer number of varieties that once existed, and by the history of some of those apples.

"This is a painting of the White Winter Pearmain, which was the apple I found growing on that wild tree. The painting was done by Amanda Almira Newton in 1906. She was one of a number of watercolour artists employed by the United States Department of Agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th century to paint all of the then 17,000 apple varietals."

"In embarking on The Ghost Orchard, I decided that I wanted the process to be transparent. I wanted to show my research, and I wanted to talk about what was going on for me while I was at work on the book. What was happening while I was researching and writing the book was that a close friend of mine was dying. Joanne Page was also a writer, and a visual artist. In the early days of our friendship, at least a dozen years ago, she once painted me an apple for a birthday."

"One of the most rewarding parts of working on the book was doing the research and making forays to various sites of interest. For my chapter on Robert Frost and his relationship to apples, I went to visit Robert Frost's last orchard in Vermont, planted when he was in his 80s. Frost had three orchards in his lifetime. The first was planted by someone else and was on a farm he rented. It was this orchard that was the inspiration for many of his famous 'apple' poems. The second was begun as a commercial enterprise with his son, Carol. But the third was planted purely for himself and therefore held the greatest interest for me. Visiting it was a much more moving experience than I had imagined. This is a photo of some of the apples in Robert Frost's last orchard, with his writing cabin in the background."