“All the rings of inner heartwood are essentially dead, just lignin-reinforced cellulose built up year after year, stacked layer upon layer, through droughts and storms, disease and stresses, everything that the tree has lived through preserved and recorded within its own body. Every tree is held up by its own history, the very bones of its ancestors.”
Greenwood was such a moving and thoughtful novel (and reminded me of another great book: This Tender Land, set after the great depression, a protagonist jumping the railways). Christie’s story ties to the future in a clever narrative structure, set up like a cross-section of the rings of a tree. It begins in 2038, hops to 2008, 1974, 1934, 1908 and then forward through those same years back to 2038.
The bulk of the story is told in the year 1934 with a cat and mouse chase between protagonist Everett Greenwood who saves a baby abandoned in the woods, and the wealthy RJ Holt who fathered the baby out of wedlock, sends a lackey to retrieve the baby and keep things under wraps.
While compelling and suspenseful, with books that span great swaths of time, I tend to get invested in some characters and wish more time was spent with them. At times the cat and mouse chase seemed to drag, but when the plot did come back around to characters from the later years, I was moved to tears. It’s a beautiful and heart wrenching reflection on the environment, what makes a life, and a family. Bonus points for a gorgeously rendered depiction of the PNW.
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