The opener is a gorgeous family saga with the texture of a Ken Burns documentary, and more plot.

The handful of readers who come to the book without benefit of reviews or jacket copy will believe it’s a collection of unrelated short stories. “The Overstory” is a delightfully choreographed, ultimately breathtaking hoodwink. People will only read stories about people, as this author knows perfectly well. All the behaviors described above have been studied and documented by scientists who carefully avoid the word “behavior” and other anthropomorphic language, lest they be accused of having emotional attachments to their subjects.īut: Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim. It may register as a shock, then, that trees have lives so much like our own. Some of this might take centuries, but for a creature with a life span of hundreds or thousands of years, time must surely have a different feel about it.Īnd for all that, trees are things to us, good for tables, floors and ceiling beams: As much as we might admire them, we’re still happy to walk on their hearts. They mine and farm the land, and sometimes move their families across great distances for better opportunities. They manage their resources in bank accounts, using past market trends to predict future needs. With relatives and non-kin alike they cooperate, forming neighborhood watch committees - to name one example - with rapid response networks to alert others to a threatening intruder. They give gifts, communicate, learn, remember and record the important events of their lives. They compete for their livelihoods and take care of their families, sometimes making huge sacrifices for their children. Trees do most of the things you do, just more slowly.

The overstory