THE TREES
A Novel
An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.
An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.
The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.
- Graywolf Press
- Paperback
- September 2021
- 320 Pages
- 9781644450642
Buy the Book
$16.00
About Percival Everett
Percival Everett is author to more than thirty books. He voted for Joe Biden.
Praise
“This fierce satire is both deeply troubling and rewarding.”—Booklist, starred review
“Everett’s sharp latest (after Telephone) spins a puckish revenge fantasy into dark social satire underpinned by a whodunit. . . . This timely absurdist novel produces plenty of chills.”—Publishers Weekly
“With customary ferocity, Everett’s taut narrative pacing leads us through revelations of the all-too-familiar white supremacy that undergirds so much of American life.”—Lit Hub
“God bless Percival Everett, whose dozens of idiosyncratic books demonstrate a majestic indifference to literary trends, the market or his critics.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Everett is an author who started his career off strong and just keeps getting better. [So Much Blue is] a generous, thrilling book by a man who might well be America’s most under-recognized literary master.”—NPR.org
“Like watching a skilled juggler execute a six-ball fountain, the experience of reading ‘Telephone’ is astonishing.”—Los Angeles Times
Discussion Questions
1. The Trees employs caricature, satire, and historical fact. What is the relationship between stereotype and history? How do power dynamics change the impact and meaning of stereotypes?
2. Chester Hobsinger and Gertrude Penstock are mixed race and White-passing. How does this shape them and their roles in the book? How are they perceived by other characters and in what ways does this help or hinder them in meeting their goals?
3. The KKK stages a cross burning that goes wrong and mostly unnoticed. What does this say about the relationship between stupidity and violence, incompetence and innocence? How does that relationship change what is perceived as a threat?
4. What is the significance of Bluegum’s, the dojo, and Black self-defense in The Trees?
5. The Trees is explicitly concerned with anti-Black police violence yet has three Black investigators as main characters. How does the author portray the tensions between policing and Blackness?
6. At the heart of The Trees is a massive archive of victims of anti-Black violence, many unnamed. What is the book saying about the relationship between memory and justice? Meanwhile, multiple Black characters have origin stories rooted in lynching. How does racist violence and racism shape families? What is included and omitted from family history?
7. The Trees is specifically concerned with America’s anti-Blackness, yet it names the sites of violence that represent other marginalized identities as well. How do these types of violence relate? How is American anti-Blackness unique?
8. Damon Thruf begins by writing the name of every lynching victim in pencil with the goal to later erase them and “set them free.” At the end of the novel, he is typing them instead. What do you think has changed?
9. How does humor diffuse or sharpen emotional responses to difficult material, historical or otherwise?