Anatomy of a Tree Removal

I'm sitting here in my home office, trying to write, and watching the tree-removal men slowly cut up and remove a dead oak from my front yard. Very sad day -- mine is one of five newish houses on this block, and apparently the construction of the new houses killed the roots of some of the great oaks and elms that line our street. As a result, this one block has lost at least half a dozen big, big trees in the past two years. Most neighborhoods here have a great Southern canopy of leaves in the spring and summer and fall, but ours is slowly being denuded. We've planted a few new trees since moving here, but by the time they're big enough to shade me I'll be a very, very old man.



Also thinking: Wow, I wish I'd kept my sons home from school so they could watch this. A wood-chipping truck, a elevated-lift crane, a skid steer, and chainsaws! My one-year-old especially would be in toddler heaven right now.



And: in this age of ascendant e-books, I can't help wondering how much pulp this one dead tree has in it, and how many pages of an actual real non-electronic book that equates to. How many pages have I written while under the shadow of this particular tree in the last three years? Will reading e-books actually save trees, or just kill West Virginia mountains, since e-book readers aren't exactly solar powered?



And: How cool must it feel to be fifty feet high, in a small bucket lift, wielding a chainsaw? Or how terrifying?



(On cue, here comes one of my neighbors with his two-year-old son to watch as the remainder of the now branchless tree is slowly lopped off.)



And: wow, I hope none of that lands on my house. I trust that these guys know what they're doing. They're insured. I'm insured. It's all good, right?



And while on the subject of dead trees: Just yesterday I received my box of hardcovers of The Revisionists! It's a real book, and it's officially coming out in less than two weeks! I've had some softcover, non-proofed galleys for a few months now, but nothing beats seeing the real hardcover. (Sorry to sound old-school and pro-real-book, but there, I've revealed my partisan preference.) I'm very excited to share The Revisionists with the world, and I'm glad that it's already receiving some good reviews, with rumors of more to follow. On the week of publication, my publisher's web site, mulhollandbooks.com, will post daily interviews, reviews, and essays by or about myself and the book, so be sure to check there starting Monday, Sept. 26. Good stuff coming soon.



I just realized that the second-to-last chapter of the book has a character contemplating an oak tree in her own front yard. I was unaware of that significance a few minutes ago, honestly.



Sawdust is now thick in the air outside my window. The tree is about three-quarters the height it was when I started this. Being a tree-removal-expert still appears exceedingly dangerous, but so far they're all still alive.



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