Nine characters, each with a different relationship to trees, whose stories gradually converge around the fight to save old-growth forests. Powers writes about the natural world with a rigour that most novelists reserve for human psychology — and the effect is to make you see trees differently for weeks afterwards. The science is real. The grief is real.
This is a long novel that earns its length. The opening section — five separate novellas, each introducing a character through their family’s relationship with a single tree — is some of the best writing Powers has done. By the time the stories begin to intersect, you are already committed in a way that’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t read it.
Year 2018
Price £10.99
Category Literary Fiction