I first fell in love with Jeff Zentner’s young adult novels. Their specific blend of wise insights and beauty was tinged with sadness and always with a lot of music thrown in. A couple of years ago, Zentner (himself a musician) wrote his excellent first book for adults, COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT, which is set in the world of country music. I was relieved that his voice continued to come through loud and clear. Now, in his latest adult novel, LOVE, LIKE APPLES, he has turned his attention to a different, and somewhat unexpected, creative pursuit: puppetry.

As Zentner’s narrator, Tiller Loomis, notes, “there was something in the zeitgeist in America in the late sixties, puppetwise, while war waged overseas.” Tiller --- who was given his first quasi-puppet by his older brother, Smith, when he was just a kid --- notes the feeling of intermingled innocence and anarchy that surrounded shows like “Sesame Street,” “The Muppet Show” and even “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” in the late 1960s and ’70s, when the majority of his story takes place.

"[LOVE, LIKE APPLES is] a powerful call to action for those who think their artistic passions might not matter. Zentner assures us all that they do."

After Smith is killed in Vietnam, Tiller --- whose mother died giving birth to him --- feels increasingly estranged from his small Appalachian town and his father’s worsening alcoholism. The only thing that pulls him out of his grief and into something resembling hope is rediscovering puppetry. He is taken under the wing of a kindly Christian couple who teaches him the craft. The first puppet he designs is named Smith. 

LOVE, LIKE APPLES is set mostly in New York City in the late 1970s and ’80s during those heady days of the puppet zeitgeist. Tiller eventually gets his big break, portraying several rural characters in a short-lived but profoundly progressive PBS show for teens called “Imagine Nation.” The novel’s framing story is that a present-day Tiller --- now back in the South and working in a new career --- is being interviewed by a documentarian making a film about the series while the majority of its creative team is still alive. He retells the story of his life, from his childhood through the “Imagine Nation” years and beyond. Most poignantly for Tiller, he tells us about the great love of his life.

The fact that Zentner selected puppetry as Tiller’s artistic medium offers plenty of opportunities for whimsy, but he could have chosen any artistic medium for his novel. At its heart, LOVE, LIKE APPLES is about this very specific era in American history --- a time when the country was just starting to heal from a brutal war and before a new disease would hit creative industries especially hard. 

Zentner touches on both the war and AIDS, but he also focuses on the universal power of creating art with other people --- art that matters not only in the social issues it addresses but also in the communities it builds and the lives it affects, often without its creators being fully aware of their impact. It’s a powerful call to action for those who think their artistic passions might not matter. Zentner assures us all that they do.