The Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018 and was a New York Times Bestseller. It is a sprawling, ambitious work that winds the stories of several trees and nine characters throughout the long narrative. Some of the stories are interconnected and some are not, some feel unfinished, and some seem to have universal connections.
This is not a traditional story. It mixes science, art, humanism, drama, politics, sociology, economics, and fiction in a potent blend of tree-themed topics.
“This is a gigantic fable of genuine truths held together by a connective tissue of tender exchange between fictional friends, lovers, parents, and children.” (Barbara Kingsolver, NY Times Review)
The storytelling is compelling, dramatic, and sharp. The metaphors of the lives of trees is reflected in human connections to the forests. The crescendo of this whirling tale is the war in the woods over old growth timber. The characters are connected to these events in various ways, as scientists, activists, spectators, and supporters. Throughout the story, Patricia’s voice resonates with the characters and the reader.
“She controls for everything she can, and the results are always the same. Only one conclusion makes any sense: The wounded trees send out alarms that other trees smell. Her maples are signaling. They’re linked together in an airborne network, sharing an immune system across acres of woodland. These brainless, stationary trunks are protecting each other.”
She can’t quite let herself believe. But the data keep confirming. And on that evening when Patricia finally accepts what the measurements say, her limbs heat up and tears run down her face. For all she knows, she’s the first creature in the expanding adventure of life who has ever glimpsed this small but certain thing that evolution is up to. Life is talking to itself, and she has listened in.”
Power’s goal is to move the reader:
“All good stories…kill you a little. They turn you into something you aren’t.”
For many readers, the plot may seem “scattered”, the characters “distant, ” and the conclusion “vague.” Understanding and enjoying the novel requires us to suspend expectations and judgement and to go on the journey with the author, patient and watchful like ancient trees swaying in the wind.
This is an outstanding book, one that will be with me every time I walk in the forests. I ramble through the trees all year-round, winding past the trunks, but sometimes I get above the trees, looking across the overstory below, thankful to be in a world where there are still mature trees.
