The Trees cover art

The Trees

A Novel

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The Trees

By: Percival Everett
Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
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About this listen

An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone

Percival Everett's The Trees is a must-listen 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. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America's pulse.

©2021 Percival Everett (P)2022 Tantor Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Fiction Witty Suspense Detective Mississippi

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All stars
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A deeply unsettling story that needs to be heard. For a non American listener it maybe takes a while to get you eat tuned to the delivery, but it's worth it. Whip smart in points and deeply worrying in others.

Haunting

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You have to be ready for some violence, & very racist attitudes & language - not ‘gratuitous’ though, I’d say. If your a Trump supporter or denizen of the USA ‘deep south’ be ready for what you might, by now, be thinking of as stereotyping. Sorry! A short but fantastic novel that says some needful things & is always going off in unexpected directions.

Excellent Novel

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Not sure how I feel about this novel. Bits I loved, some made me laugh out loud and some made me feel very uncomfortable.
But overall definitely worth a credit.

Thought provoking and disturbing

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James, by Everett, is the best thing I've read for a long while, This is astonishing, Making people laugh in a narrative about a lynching? It's elegaic and angry and gorgeously written.

A punch in the gut piece of brilliance

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As a story I regard this as jumbled and incomplete. It feels like a book that tries too much and doesn’t deliver on any front apart from highlighted historic racist atrocities.

There were a few funny lines and the playing with peoples names was clever if a little overused.

It’s not a bad book and certainly better than I could write however I cannot see what the fuss is other than messaging that will appeal to some demographics and one side of the ongoing culture apocalypse. To Kill a Mockingbird it ain’t

One real message, otherwise incoherent

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Remarkable book. I have Bill Nighy to thank for mentioning that he was hoping for this book as his Xmas gift when he stood in for Iggy Pop on BBC Radio 6 Music.

The past remains present in determining the future.

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A really compelling read - keeps pace so well. First time reading Percival Everett and massively impressed. Narration brilliantly done too.

Clever and cutting

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I like the characters, from the agile 105 year old with a sharp mind, Zee, to the toddler of Hot Mamma Yellah, the ABI to the FBI, well drawn and well developed The story was interesting and believable. However I found the language tiring although it was a believable response to the scenarios being played out.
The reader made every character unique so it was easy to keep track of everyone. I wondered if the author was considering a sequel or a volume 2. It seemed unfinished to me. I assumed the reader was supposed to draw their own conclusions.

Excellent reader

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I really wanted to like this book, but actually I'm surprised by the positive reviews and general acclaim it has garnered. I tend to regard the word literary, in the context of the phrase 'literary thriller' as synonymous with 'bad', and this is no exception. The subject is terrible and needs constant and unremitting examination - we must never let ourselves forget what happened in the American South. But I don't see this book with its ludicrous premise, thin and stereotyped characterisation and clunky humour, as being a worthy example of the way to memorialise it.

While the narrator brings the flavour of the South to his reading, his characterisation is terrible. Throughout the book, one is never sure until there is a clue in the text whether a new character is black or white. Everyone speaks the same, except on the occasions when the plot takes us outside Mississippi, when the attempts to render a non-Southern accents are comic.

Nearly four hours in, finding no particular progress in the plot or startling insights, I'm afraid I gave up.

Not so impressed

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It was entertaining, great dialogue (but sweary), fast paced, funny😊 An insight into tragic history. I didn't want it to end or the conclusion wasn't satisfying - I'm not sure which.
it was sometimes hard to discern which character was speaking🤔

Entertaining

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