Greenwood

Every star. I feel like I need to try and collect my thoughts to give this wonder a proper review, but I don't think I have the words to describe how much I loved it. It is incredible and I will never forget it. It has earned a spot among the few that make up my favorites of all time.

Phew finally done. Only took 1.5 months

I absolutely loved reading this book; could not recommend it enough!

I stumbled upon this book at a small souvenir store in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. What caught my attention at first was how beautiful the book is. The cover is beautiful, and the side of the book shows the cross-section of a tree (hard to describe, but it was just beautiful). I didn't end up buying the book at first, but I realized that this specific edition is the Canadian version, and I wouldn't be able to find it back in the US. So the next day, I went back to the store and bought it.

The story itself is chefs kiss. It's follows four generations of the Greenwood family and the format of the book is incredible. At the beginning of the book, you'll see a picture of the cross-section of the tree where each ring corresponds to a year. The book is told in the “same format”, we start with the outer ring (the year 2038), then move to the iner rings (2008, 1974, 1934, and 1908), then back out to the other side of the outer rings. It sounds cheesy and strange, but the way Michael Christie executes this is just perfect. At the beginning of the book, you hear bits and pieces about Jake Greenwood's family, and as you go back in years you start to discover more about Jake's family tree and how everything is tagled together (like the roots of a tree in a forest). The characters in each generation of the family are well-developed and complex, and at a certain point I just couldn't put this book down.

I also love how this book touches on the environmental damage that humans cause. As the book begins, you hear about an environmental catastrophe known as the “Great Withering,” and you hear about how humans around the world have trouble breathing due to the air pollution. All the characters in this book have a strong relationship to nature too, albeit in very different ways.

All in all... this book is simply fantastic. 10/10 would recommend.

“How intimately a book is related to the tree and its rings, she thinks. The layers of time, preserved for all to examine.”

Ogres, onions, and cakes all have layers, so I hear. What you see on the outside (or on the top, I guess, in the case of cakes) isn't necessarily what you get all the way through. This book, too, is built in layers, which makes a satisfying whole when you've cut all the way through, but might leave you wondering where things are headed in the middle. I really enjoyed this book, but I can't really point to why, except that the layers were very satisfying, when taken as one big bite.

This is a story about a family, told across generations. Starting (and ending) in 2038 with Jake's experience on an island of trees, one of the very few left in existence. Tourists come to gawk at her trees from a world where dust storms choke everything and everyone. A diary is presented to her, purportedly written by her grandmother, and we're off, flying backwards through the years to 1974 and Jake's mother, back to 1934 and Jake's grandmother, and back even further to 1908 and Jake's more distant relations. A story starts unfolding here, taking us slowly back upwards through the years, nurturing this family tree from its roots all the way back to the branch where Jake herself resides. This family of problems, of dysfunction, of capitalism and activism, all comes together to tell the story of Jake, where the book finally ends.

If slow burn multigenerational epics aren't your thing, there isn't a lot here for you. While the story of a future Earth where trees are a novelty and ecotourism is all the rage is mildly interesting, it's not told well here, and I found myself getting bored with Jake's viewpoints in the beginning and at the very end where she bookends the actual story being told. While interested in the story, I also found myself wondering where things were headed in the middle as well, particularly as the story is first building steam and going backwards through the years rather than forwards. The story is a complex one, and it wasn't until the points were driven home several times that I finally understood the role a particular name or family member played in the larger whole. But the writing.... it was phenomenal. Descriptive, lyrical, and beautiful, it really made the entire book for me. Even though this wasn't a full five stars for me (mostly because of the aforementioned Jake's viewpoints), it still lands solidly on my list of favorites for this year.

I was disappointed with this book. After a terrible start, the book gets better. The future section is weak but others are better. Cloud Atlas and the Overstory cover similar topics much better.

Stretching from the near future to the distant past...and then back again, Greenwood tells a beautiful multi-generational story of love, loss, and the meaning of family in all shapes and forms.

Add this title to the growing trend of excellent books about trees that have sprouted up in recent years. Author Michael Christie shines a light on humanity's relationship with trees through the eyes of each main character. Some fight for the preservation and protection of trees at all costs, some craft beautiful art from their component parts, and some heavily exploit them in the name of capitalism. Ultimately, Greenwood speculates a future “Great Withering” of Earth's trees as rapid climate changes leave our towering friends vulnerable and dying.

Christie cleverly uses the cross-section of a tree trunk to organize the nested storytelling structure. Each subsequent section feels tangentially related to the section before it, but as the connections between events and characters become more clear, the full picture emerges, especially in the back half of the book, where we revisit each era once again. I slowly worked my way through this novel and found myself fully immersed in each individual character and story. Christie's prose is beautifully composed and his descriptions of nature are stunning. I'd recommend this to any lover of nature or fan of epic family sagas.

See this post and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Tough gig having this come out the year after Richard Power's incredible Overstory but Michael Christie absolutely delivers the goods. The stories are concentric rings of a tree as we go backwards in time, passing the central core and radiating outwards again. But we kick off in the not too distant future.

We're on a remote island off the coast of BC that is one of the world's last old-growth forests where only the wealthy can come to commune with the trees in the “Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral.” Little green is left after the Great Withering. It's all dust-choked cities and folks battling rib retch - a cough that can snap ribs.

From here we dive back through four generations of Greenwoods over 130 years. Christie drops threads as we work our way back to 1908. Despite starting in the future we won't see the forest for the trees (sorry/not sorry) until we make our way back from the turn of the century. It's a beautiful bit of storytelling. Each generation seems a mystery to the next.

The Greenwoods legacy is one of hardship and suffering and yet in Christie's hands remains ever hopeful. A sweeping family saga of resilience filled with compelling characters whose lives are tied to the trees that ultimately fit together like a perfect dovetail joint.

The book itself it a piece of work too. (At least my Canadian edition) The hardback is made with 100% recycled paper using vegetable-based inks and water-based adhesives. Thiis one of “the most sustainably published books in Canada ever ...connecting the reading experience and the physical object of the book.