The Boys in the Trees

by Mary Swan

At the turn of the twentieth century, newly arrived to the countryside, William Heath, his wife, and two daughters appear the picture of a devoted family. But when accusations of embezzlement spur William to commit an unthinkable crime, those who witnessed this affectionate, attentive father go about his routine of work and family must reconcile action with character. A doctor who cared for the young Lillian searches for clues that might penetrate the mystery of the father’s motivation. Meanwhile Rachel’s teacher grapples with guilt over a moment when fate wove her into a succession of events that will haunt her dreams.

In beautifully crafted prose, Mary Swan examines the intricate and unexpected connections between the people in this close-knit community that continue to echo in the future. In her nuanced, evocative descriptions, a locket contains immeasurable sorrow, trees provide sanctuary and refuge to lost souls, and grief clicks into place when a man cocks the cold steel barrel of a revolver. A supreme literary achievement, The Boys in the Trees offers a chilling story that swells with acutely observed emotion and humanity.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Canada, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Canadian Literature, Historical

207 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 2008

About the author

Mary Swan is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is also a trained librarian with a keen eye for history. Her novel The Boys in the Trees, a shortlisted nominee for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize, was inspired by a newspaper clipping concerning a death within a family.

Swan was the winner of the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction for her short story "The Deep", which was published in The Malahat Review. That story later became the title story of her debut short story collection The Deep and Other Stories in 2002.

A graduate of York University and the University of Guelph, she currently resides in Guelph, Ontario with her family.

Reviews

[Anne Sanow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Mary Swan's O. Henry Prize-winning story "The Deep"--I'm starting to think too much so, because I'm holding her to that standard and so far, have remained disappointed. That story eclipses any of her other shorts; this novel, with its varied points of view, intricate layers and structuring, does come close. She's a writer who seems to seek to portray the less glaringly obvious to her readers: ripple effects rather than direct action, accidents of memory rather than tin-eared overload (e.g., "...and she could never forget, ta ta TUM"), suffused observation rather than laundry lists of detail. It's something I love about her work, though it can make it elusive; it demands a good deal of careful attention from the reader, while never showing off to earn that attention. In other words, you do have to work for your rewards--and those rewards are of the subtle, haunting kind.

The earlier sections do a wonderful job of building up a sense of dread, and that gets lost a bit in the middle; the different points of view sometimes get muted by Swan's quiet prose style. If you're someone who likes an obvious plot and authorial guidance, this probably isn't for you. If you appreciate an intricate simmering of detail and events, though, give this a chance: you end up with a poignant sense of what happens to people and place over time, and the different, odd ways that memory works to catch and preserve and speculate.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Boys in the Trees. Oh if only those boys would get down from the trees and explain the story to me.

Words cannot begin to explain my frustration towards this book. Mary Swan’s “The Boys in the Trees” is a novel that cannot be read like any other. It requires your complete attention to catch every little detail that the author so purposefully hides within her story. Even then, you’re bound to miss something and you become lost, once again, within Swan’s meticulous writing.

Unlike the traditional narrative writing style, Swan organizes her novel into section of different narratives all having some sort of relevance (even if you can’t find it) to the main plot. Quite simply, William Heath has murdered his family. The novel then revolves around the lives of people who have been affected by this incident. These characters all provide different perspectives while leaking context on the protagonist, who barely talks for himself. It becomes quite confusing as the author switches from character to character, time period to time period, without warning. During the first chapter, William has 3 beautiful children and a just as beautiful wife. Then after the turn of the chapter you read about William again but this time with 2 different children. Its examples like these that caused my much confusion trying to follow the story in a linear path. If not for the assignment that required me to finish the book, I would have definitely dropped it within the first 50 pages.

But I’m glad I finish the book.

As I continued to progress through the novel, Swan’s stylistic prose began to grow on me. Instead of looking for the same linear path that would take me to the end of the book, I slowed down to match the pace of the novel. I began to ignore the main plot and paid close attention to the perspectives each character had to offer. Surprisingly, the story came together easier that way. Although you are never given all the information and the concrete plot you wanted, you become content with the story.

“He knew he was just waiting here, that it was never meant to be his life.”

I think that quote really provides a structure for the entire story. Throughout the entire story, all the characters show feelings of inadequacy, a feeling of wanting something more. William’s actions triggered something in all the minds of the characters to act upon their instinctive desires. I think that the book had a profound effect on me as well. Although having a very negative opinion of the book initially, I found that as I took the time to analyze the different character perspectives, the story really opened up and I got the feeling of a story behind the surface.

[Tiff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

Okay, so maybe that's not the most productive way to start a review. But that basically sums up how I feel about The Boys in the Trees, a book I had high hopes for. It reminded me of a fiction version of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote -- and I hated that book.

The reason I gave this book three stars instead of two is because I recognize that Swan's obscure, non-linear style is a matter of personal taste rather than fault. I enjoy flowery, descriptive writing in addition to a good plot, but with The Boys in the Trees I felt that the story was being hidden behind a style that was trying too hard to be ... quiet? edgy? "beautifully" undercut? Instead it just fell flat, and I found myself wanting the book to end so I could move on to something more my taste.

Another reason I couldn't justify giving this book two stars is because I did enjoy certain parts, those rare snippets of concrete story that were sometimes allowed to roam free through the obscurity of the writing. I also loved the concept of exploring the effects of a murder through several perspectives. I liked seeing Heath's execution through Eaton's eyes, finding out what Rachel's voice sounded like, disliking a character like Sarah. I just didn't like having to chase down those parts I did like, having to sift through what I thought to be meaningless prose to get to the meat of the story.

I need a fluff piece after this.

[Steven Teasdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

There has been a recent trend among some journalists in Canada to instantly dismiss what has been termed, often derisively, as “Canadian gothic.” Although the term is vague and not precisely defined, it is essentially accepted as dark, tragic, nineteenth-century rural Canadian narrative (for example, think Wuthering Heights transported to the Bruce Peninsula). Given this provisional definition, The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan falls into this category, but it would be a mistake to overlook this fine novel simply based on this categorization.

The Boys in the Trees is a heartbreaking tale of a terrible tragedy and how it transforms (and informs) a community, offset with notions of how memory, responsibility, forgiveness, and knowledge shape lives. The story asks the reader how memories of the past affects the life one lives now, how responsibility is to be determined when actions cannot be predicted, how forgiveness is essential to a contented life, and how knowledge about one another, and memory of the past, is necessarily incomplete.

The novel begins and ends (as its title suggests) with vignettes of boys in trees. The trees at the beginning of the novel offer refuge, a safe haven from abuse and despair for a young boy named William Heath, one determined to escape his miserable existence and determined that one day people will know his name. The trees at the end of the novel provide a vantage point another group of boys to witness the final results of a tragic choice.

After the brief vignette in the trees, we next see William as a young man with a family living in England. He is beset by a first brutal onslaught of tragedy that causes the family to flee to Canada – first Toronto, then the fictional town of Emden, Ontario. However, William is unable to escape his feelings of anxiety, despair, and failure that have accompanied him since childhood, setting the stage for a second and even more brutal tragedy. It is this tragedy that is dealt with in the remainder of the novel, with the citizens of Emden reflecting and acting upon their impressions of what happened. Swan is masterful here at describing the ripple effects of a tragic singularity on the lives and memory of those involved with the Heath family.

Swan writes in a resolutely non-linear format that suits her examinations of knowledge and identity. In particular, the second and third chapters are composed in fascinating contrapuntal narratives that slowly converge into their respective tragic conclusions. The remainder of the novel consists of individual non-linear narratives (recollections of the citizens of Emden at various points in time) that slowly offer the reader additional insight into the characters and events of the first three chapters yet leave many questions unanswered, signifying that the causes and motivations behind many events are ultimately unknowable, even by those closest to them.

One narrative follows a young boy named Eaton, a neighbour and friend to the Heath daughters. The tragedy provides a defining point in Eaton’s life, and assigns an infinite value to a secret gift that he will carry with him for the remainder of his life. Questions of guilt and responsibility continue to haunt Eaton even as his memory fades in old age.

Another narrative follows the Robinson family and how the main tragedy relates to and interacts with another within their own family. Again, questions of guilt and responsibility are examined, with a possible answer provided in the notion of forgiveness. Hints at guilt possibly lying elsewhere are suggested throughout the Robinson family narrative, and additional facets of the Heath family are provided by the Robinson women.

These narratives ask us: what can we really know of a person from their external appearance and outward actions? Swan shows that we can only glean facets, glimpses of knowledge that no matter how numerous will never coalesce into a whole, or even a reasonable representation of a whole. And moreover, this imperfect knowledge is ultimately doomed to fade away with the people holding it. Nevertheless, these accumulated facets can provide a rich description of characters and motives, even with many questions remaining unanswered.

This is remarkable debut by Mary Swan. It has been nominated for the 2008 Giller Prize, and in my opinion is the best of the four nominees I have read (having yet to read the Joseph Boyden entry, and not likely to finish it before the award is presented). I strongly urge anyone interested in the future of Canadian literature to read this book. I certainly look forward to reading more of her work.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an interesting rather dark book with exquisite writing by Canadian Mary Swann. I think I may have to re-read this book in the not too distant future. I felt at the end that I was somewhat left hanging. I don't know if the author intended this, or if I've missed something. I think I'd enjoy her short stories.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second read from this author, and I will likely read other books by her. There is something about her writing that I find very compelling. In this case, I was frustrated with the book a few times; times when I felt like I was reading and reading and not making any progress in the book/story. But, I kept coming back to it; it kept drawing me back into it.

Overall, I think this was a good read, and I am glad that I stuck with it.



Note: I used to give full reviews for all of the books that I rated on GR. However, GR's new giveaway policies (Good Reads 2017 November Giveaways Policies Changes) have caused me to change my reviewing decisions. These new GR policies seem to harm smaller publishing efforts in favour of providing advantage to the larger companies (GR Authors' Feedback), the big five publishers (Big Five Publishers). So, because of these policies from now on I will be supporting smaller publishing effort by only giving full reviews to books published by: companies outside the big five companies, indie publishers, and self-published authors. This book was published by one of the big five companies so will not receive a more detailed review by me.

[Anji Beane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, and I didn't hate it, but I definitely don't think it lived up to its potential. It had the makings of an excellent book, and I think that if the characters had been able to develop a little more, if the storyline was spelled out a bit more instead of being left open for chapters on end, it could have been a book I would recommend. The story was told through the memories of various characters and completely lacked any dialog. This style normally appeals to me, but for some reason I wasn't feeling it with this book.

I'm giving this book two stars. I could give it three, but because I really wanted it to be better, and I really feel as though it could have been excellent, I removed a star from my original rating. I finished reading this book hours ago and I'm still bothered by the way that it ended. It really seemed as though the author was trying to wrap it all up with the final couple of chapters, but it just left me hanging even more than before.

*** Spoilers Ahead ***

The story centered around the murders of an entire family by the family's father, but not really. It was more about how the murders affected various people in the community. Each chapter is from the point of view of a different character, and you're given bits and pieces of the story through each character's memories. What bothered me the most is that you really have to piece together what happened on your own, and you may not know until chapters later. This would be fine if it was a mystery, but it is not a mystery. The first chapter deals with a young boy, and you aren't told who the boy is, you just have to assume later on that the boy is indeed the man who killed his family. Another part deals with a woman named Naomi and her children, and it gives you various recipes for what appears to be medicine. Then the next thing you know, there is a woman on a boat missing her children, but you don't find out until much later that it is the same woman and that her children have died. At another time, the older daughter, who has yet to be murdered, sees what seem to be the ghosts of her siblings - however, there is nothing more about them in the entire book. It's just strange. And then there is the girl who assists the photographer, both of whom are completely useless characters. The only purpose the girl's chapter (chapters?) seems to serve is done in one paragraph, when she is talking about how things can come and go but not be noticed, but still affect the things they touch.

A couple of different characters in the book talk about being in the dark, in a dark room, and seeing shapes that, as your eyes adjust to the darkness, come to light little by little, until you can see what it is that you're looking at. I think this book was meant to happen like that - to have the story line come to light little by little until you were able to clearly see the whole picture. Instead, I think that you were left in a semi-dark room, with the shapes and some shadows in the room visible, but the light never fully comes on, and you're left unable to see the colors... only varying shades of gray.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mesmerizing novel. Swans draw you into the story beautifully but it's her musings I loved...

Button
"There's nothing remarkable about it. Colour of old bone, size of a small coin, holes for thread to pass through. It's only where it comes from that gives it meaning, and how long will that last? It may be kept in a small tin box for a generation or two, and then someone will want or need the box for something else. Hold the small button in the palm of a hand, half remembering a passed-down story, and put it into another container, a jar maybe, for safe-keeping. Doing that, but at the same time wondering if there really was a story, thinking that even if there was, it might not have been true. It may have come from one of those posed in the battered album that has also been passed down, faces faded or darkened with age, people with names no one alive still knows. And why assume they always told the truth? Still the button goes into a glass jar and someone thinks, late at night, of the way that stories lose their meaning, just like objects do, as the years wheel on, as new ones take their place. Someone understands that this thought too will be gone and no one will know, no one will ever know.

And perhaps sometime later, someone else will find a glass jar with one bone-colored button, add a few more. Maybe with a pinprick of a thought, or maybe the story is completely gone, although there are others. Over time the jar will fill up because that's the thing about buttons, they are always falling off, they always are always turning up in a house, in a life, and you don't throw them away; there will surely come a day when you need just that colour, just that size. The first small button is probably still rattling around in a jar with many others, old ones, newer, all shades and sizes, bits of trailing thread. Nothing at all to set it apart; it could have belonged to anyone."

One of my all time favourite pieces of writing.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose is beautiful, but this story requires "attention". It is not an easy read. And I did wonder at the end of the book what happened to some of the characters, their stories were left hanging.. but perhaps Mary Swan saw that as life... some of the people we in our lives, we know what happens with them, and other people come into our lives for a while, then leave and we don't ever know what becomes of them.”

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautifully written and haunting book, I found myself marking off passage after passage for brilliant wording and messages that spoke to me, and I was completley swept away by the characters and their plights. I bought this book at a second hand store, simply because the title and cover caught my eye, but I didn't expect to find one of the best books I've read in recent years.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did something I never do with this book. As soon as I had finished reading it I immediately began re-reading it. There were so many nuances I wanted to review, and I kept finding little phrases that added to the overall mystery. This was a fantastic read.

[Marie Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the style of writing in this book to be absolutely brilliant. With that said, it was a slow and difficult read for me initially because the plot doesn't flow in a typical manner that I'm familiar with. However, as I gradually began to understand what was going on, I was drawn into the story to the point it became a real page turner.

The tragic story that unfolded was never really spelled out at any given time; rather, there were little tidbits of information released when the author felt it was just the right time. Which drew me into the story even more.

Although I didn't realize it in the beginning, each of the main characters has a chapter dedicated to them. This is how we learn about William Heath, his wife Naomi and their daughters Lillian and Rachel. Also, their neighbours Miss Alice, who runs a small home school, her sister Sarah as well as Dr. Robinson across the street, his wife and young son Eaton.

There are other characters who round out the story, which takes place between 1816 and 1889, although it is not told in chronological order. Which again makes it a tad challenging at times, but also shows how incredibly talented the author is in her ability to bring everything together.

There is an underlying feeling of unhappiness and despair throughout the book. And photography weaves its way through the storyline in a unique way.

I was most moved in the chapter about an elderly, widowed Eaton reflecting back on his life, including his reaction to an old family photograph that had been found and gifted to him by his adult children that Christmas: "The photograph reappeared beneath the next Christmas tree, cleaned up and framed under glass, and he held it in his hands in the pine scented room doing his best to pretend that it meant much more than it actually did".

After I finished the book, I went back and re-read the first two chapters, which I didn't quite understand initially. It's a book that will stay with me for a long time. I like those kind of books.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not an easy book to read. While some of the passages were beautiful written (dark and detailed), it was a challenge to follow. I started it over a couple of times, and any time I had to put it down, when I returned I had to back track several pages.
I struggle with the back and forth between situations and families on a good day... so again, a challenge to read.
The characters were introduced and described well which was a benefit to a mediocre plot.

Read or skip it, you won't be missing much.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no plot to the book. It tells the stories of various people in the town with a very loose thread connecting them. I found it confusing at first until I figured out what was going on. The best part of the book is the beautiful use of language. I often reread sentences because they were so beautiful. It's a slow-to-read book so you can savor the language and stories.

[Allison Goldstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book in general. For me, it had a slow and awkward beginning which seemed to purposely neglect being coherent and came off as a self-important, faux avant garde endeavor without the interesting results. The decision to not discuss the first set of children dying with any clarity seemed pointless and bewildering and her literary take of tiptoing around the murder (the major action of the book) came off more as prudish than stylistic-- an effect I owe entirely to her writing and not the idea she was aiming for. A very rough start indeed and I nearly put the book down halfway through since nothing was making sense and her language wasn't interesting or evocative enough to make her narrative choices stick. Basically she had an decent idea in trying to write a novel about a murder and focusing it more on the friends and acquaintences in the community than the murdered family, but her writing skills just couldn't pull it off.

However, the second part of the book that focuses on Dr. Robinson's family and later on, Eaton as an adult was written really beautifully and filled with the kind of detail and purpose that should have been provided in the first 100 pages. So a very weak beginning with a lot of vague goings on that are never fully explained (there is a daughter that is referred to as a boy and then a girl again on several ocassions), but the ending is strong and the premise of exploring a murder by focusing on the other people is an inspiring, if not wholly originaly, concept.

The book is a very short read being only about 200 pages in large type (I finished it in about a day and a half), and acts an amusing character study but don't rush out to grab this one. If you find yourself with a couple free hours and can't find anything better, just get it from the library.

[Shirley Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book a bit confusing the way it slipped between different times and different narrators. This book was a final five nominee for the 2008 Giller prize in Canada, so I expected it to be special. Instead I found it somewhat difficult to read. It is very well written, and Ms. Swan does a pretty good job of skipping around in time, but the actual tale is so horrific because of the enormity of the crime that Mr. William Heath commits. No explanation is really ever given for his drastic actions, but that is often the way it is in real life. The book is set in turn-of-the-century, small town Canada. It depicts what life was like back then with only one community doctor and all kinds of horrific illnesses. The way people lived, loved and died in these days is well depicted. These characters are very well-drawn and that is a redeeming factor for this book. It's not a very long book, but quite complex even so. On the whole I enjoyed reading the book, but would have like a little more continuity between the narratives.

[Virginia Magnuson Odien · Rating 3 out of 5]

" The jumping boy, the laughing smudgy-cheeked girl, and sometimes the other who was just a streak of color at the edge of my looking."

Throughout the book I felt the characters, the situations, the building of the story was "just a streak of color at the edge of my looking." But like the science experiment about light and color towards the end of the story, almost all the colors solidified into a whole for me.

This is a bleak book, the prose has depth and (no other way for me to put it, texture) but is so disjointed at the beginning (for me anyway) I could easily wander away from it. As whole chapters from single characters began to emerge, instead of the paragraph character thoughts, the book commanded more of my attention without me wandering away. Or maybe it was because it was so dark and emotional, that I had to walk away?

I gave it a 3 because I'm just not quite sure yet how I feel about it. Maybe tomorrow I'd change it to a 4. Or maybe not.

[Tammy Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I suppose I am most interested in the ripples caused by events, and the way so many things, especially human beings themselves, are ultimately unknowable."
This comment by the author sums up this book the best for me.

Reading reviews after finishing this book, most people are confused by the time lines and different perspectives in this story, looking for the meaning too literally. Some things just can't be explained down to a specific reason of what or why.

Consider the whole, the story is about these ripples caused the the event, as opposed to the event, itself, that is the story here. Thought provoking, brilliant writing, I really enjoyed this book.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. Story of an otherwise respected man who kills his family without warning in early days of America. The narrative jumps from future to past and from one point of view to another on a paragraph-by-paragraph (or page-by-page)basis, with some of the charactes appearing in the past sections (as children) and the present sections (as adults). After 50 pages, I still could not identify the characters well enough to know who was speaking in any given section, or even to name who were the members of the guy's family. I just could not follow it.

[Megan Crusante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad in a stunning way, written beautifully. It shows the effects of a tragedy from the point of view of many characters- but leaves the most crucial one to the reader's imagination. Somehow this made it more personal. It's a quick read but a thoughtful and smart one. I think a lot of my friends on here would like it.

[Mary Elizabeth Morton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hideously boring & confusing!! There were way too many characters and the story was all over the place. I found it hard to follow and got easily distracted by other thoughts while I was reading it. Two Thumbs WAY DOWN!

[Caitlin Gambee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not love it.

[Jenn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kept waiting for a big reveal that never came. And the constant changing of perspectives was distracting. My advice: skip this one. I was so disappointed.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weak, boring.

[Elizabeth Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book drew me in and left me breathless. The way the story is told, from the perspective of every character except for one -- we never get inside the father's head, for reasons that become clear as the plot unfolds -- is brilliant and evocative, and the perfect device for conveying the author's primary intention, which is to explore how seemingly unrelated people and things do in fact have subtle connections to one another if only you look closely enough. And how tragedy often carries the echoes of its aftermath to places far away, like the ripple effect of a pebble plunked into placid waters, causing undulations long after the pebble disappears beneath the surface and sinks to the floor of the riverbed below.

The story deals with a small Canadian town and the various reactions of the townspeople to a shocking and unthinkable crime that happens there in the late nineteenth century. It spans several generations and the interconnectedness of the characters only becomes clear very slowly, zig-zagging between time frames, the connections between people being built one section at a time like the layers of a very tall and elaborate wedding cake.

While the mesmerizing prose builds suspense through an eerily dreamlike narrative, you won't find the usual neat and tidy conclusion to a mystery here. The things that cause you to furrow your brow in befuddlement at the beginning of the story will still defy explanation at the end, and this is precisely how author Mary Swan set out to tell the tale -- like assembling a quilt from individual patchwork pieces, each piece reflecting the unique signature of the person who sewed it, each person influenced differently by the malleable, fluid, mercurial, shape-shifting qualities of memory. Swan focuses less on the details of the horrifying crime itself and more on the interpretations of that crime by the living who continued to feel the aftershocks, decades into the future.

The finished product has all of the irregularities one would expect from something that was put together by different sets of hands, with an occasional bloodstain left behind on sections crafted by the young and inexperienced.

It is, I suppose, an awful lot like life: a variegated tapestry collectively rendered by a wide variety of participants, each one contributing something irreplaceable. And the nebulous filter of a dreamlike haze suits the framing of this story so well because, despite what is for many of us a lifelong quest for answers, so much of what it means to be human ends up proving ultimately unknowable. In the end, at the final analysis, so many questions remain unanswered, so many enigmas remain elusively mysterious.

A beautiful and disturbing story, one that will linger on in your mind for probably longer than you will like -- one of the marks of an excellent book.

[Mapleleaf · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan is about the murder of a family by the father, William Heath. In the beginning chapters, he has a beautiful wife with two daughters and a son. In the following chapter, he has two other daughters with the same wife. He is employed as an accountant by the town's prominent and wealthy citizen Mr Marl whose name heads many establishments. With talk of an embezzlement, Heath murders his family who is fully dependent on him. The real story is about how the murder affected the people in their community (neighbour, playmates, teacher, etc).
Admittedly, I had to slow down to match the pace of the book. The author has a non-linear style of narrative which suddenly jumps between various points in time and between different characters. Readers have to flesh out subtle descriptions (e.g. Chapter Eaton, Later: the red trails creeping up the arm rather than saying his father very slowly died from gangrene.) The photographer's assistant explains it well after being shown the darkroom for the first time: your eyes adjust to the darkness, come to light little by little, until you can see what it is that you're looking at. That is, the author gives you little pieces in narrative that forms the full picture but just like developing pictures, there may be some things you will not fully see as when the exposure of the camera has been deliberately left on too long so fast movements will not be captured on print. Recommended to patient readers of alternative writing styles.

[Jace Proskurnik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has me feeling torn. On one hand I loved the story and the mystique, and loved the musings of multiple townsfolk, but on the other I felt so much was left unanswered. Not that I feel a novel must have some sort of “answer” all the time, but I felt I kept waiting for something that didn’t quite deliver. I do feel that was the point though - not so much about telling the story of a traumatic event from a firsthand, start to finish narrative - rather, seeing it through the eyes of those who never can truly wrap their head around it. It is an honest and captivating glimpse into the lives of those surrounding a terrible tragedy in a small town. There were definitely some words and perspectives that stuck with me and the end was fulfilling in its own way. I don’t regret reading this and I think my only qualm was that I was expecting something different from the start, and it wasn’t until I was over halfway through that I realized I was waiting for something to be illuminated that was not going to be.

Edit: the more that I think about this book and what it left lingering in my mind this is what I came up with: I think overall the story is about a young boy who is immensely impacted by a traumatic event he sees as a child and he has no one in his corner (as a child) to divulge what he’s seen and how it’s impacted him. I feel that this aspect was very well done and I enjoyed this storyline, however many other parts just weren’t executed in an organized fashion, making it feel very disjointed.

[Sam Bourne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly really wanted to like this book and it had its good parts mostly near the end when everything finally came together but the stylistic writing just made this an incredibly frustrating read.

This book is about the after affects of a murder as the townspeople grapple with why this may have happened. But the constant switching perspective can be confusing and some characters just felt unnecessary, so far removed that it felt like they didn’t add anything to the overall plot. The little information on the characters and their relationships made this book a tricky read everything is hidden below the surface and isn’t till the very end that things begin to click and become understandable.

I liked some aspects though don’t get me wrong, I might revisit this book in the future. It’s not bad, just different if your someone who enjoys a plot with substance and meaning this isn’t for you. This book is more like a character study for the people left behind in the town in the aftermath of these murders.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought it for the beautiful cover and Alice Munro's blurb. I bought it for the first line and the hope that it would be good. I read it straight through for the story. I cried because it was more than I hoped for, more than a sad and true book. The epigraph from Ecclesiasticus suggests these are people "as though they had never been born." But Swan has a deeper message. We are none of us unmarked by our passing. We touch others and are touched the way trees bear the scars of children's pen knives. When we are old we still recall events far away in our past. A young girl gives a home made book into a classmate's care, so that she can keep it a surprise for her family's Christmas, and because of that safekeeping that boy will never forget. My memories are stored the way this story is told--not in tidy order, but in snatches and blooms and stinging bites.

[Nate Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Boys in the Trees is a haunting, atmospheric novel that beautifully captures the emotional resonance of grief, trauma, and small-town Ontario secrets. Swan’s prose often evokes deep, poignant emotions, drawing readers into meaningful scenes that linger. These sections are the heart of the book, offering moments that feel both intimate and universal.

However, the novel’s fragmented structure and occasional misdirections can make it feel like you’re constantly reaching for clarity that’s just out of grasp. Shifts in perspective and timeline add a layer of complexity, which, while intriguing, sometimes detracts from the flow.

Despite this, Swan’s exploration of how tragedy impacts a community makes for an impactful and memorable read. If you enjoy novels that dig into emotional undercurrents and can navigate a non-linear narrative, The Boys in the Trees offers a rewarding experience.