The Overstory is a Remarkable Story

The author Richard Powers has been nominated for just about every award the literary world has to offer, and if you've read any of his work, it's easy to understand why. He is a versatile writer, deep and complicated and difficult to put in a box. His novels reflect his eclectic background in science, music, philosophy, literature, and technology. "The Overstory" combines all of his interests to form a cohesive whole that is a stunning work of imaginative prowess.

Powers' story transpires over the entire twentieth century beginning with a Norwegian immigrant, Jorgen Hoel, who moves with his pregnant wife from Brooklyn to Iowa. In his pockets are several chestnut seeds which he plants on the family farm, setting in motion this tale of nine seemingly unrelated characters whose lives will intersect decades down the road in a profoundly unsettling way.

At the same time that these people's lives twine together, the roots of the chestnut will branch and intertwine with other trees' roots to form one of the earth's oldest symbiotic relationships. The premise that trees feel, communicate, and protect each other and the insects and animals with which they interact, is put forth by Dr. Patricia Westerford, a hearing and speech-impaired young woman whose adoring father taught her everything she knows about the natural world. College was just the icing on the cake.

Powers takes his time introducing us to each of his protagonists in turn. From their childhoods, some lonely and solitary, others warm and loving, we learn what makes them tick. From the Vietnam veteran who parachuted into a banyan tree that held him in its arms for safety, to the computer geek and animator who's paralyzed by a fall from a not so sympathetic oak, each has a detailed biography.

In the northwest a movement is burgeoning. From California to Oregon and Washington, environmentalists are converging on areas of old growth forest destined for destruction by developers with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads. These people, whom we now know intimately, arrive alone and together from various parts of the country to perform acts of civil disobedience. They lie down across roads, handcuff themselves to heavy equipment, climb into evergreens centuries old to protect our living, breathing ancestors from the chainsaws.

Though non-violence is the rule of thumb, as so often happens during acts of quiet protest, the authorities react badly to calm. Tear gas, beatings, and imprisonment ratchet up the stakes and soon, in a horrific act or eco-terrorism, a woman is killed and everyone is on the run.

Richard Powers poses many questions worthy of discussion, questions that will really make you see the world of nature, and of trees in particular, in a very different way. What responsibility do we have, he wonders, to the natural world that sustains us and the generations before and after us? How insignificant we human beings are in the grand scheme of things! After all, the rings of a fallen tree represent millennia.

I can't say enough about this amazing, thought-provoking novel. I know that it will make my top ten for 2018.