The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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The Trees
Booker Prize for Fiction
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2022 Booker Shortlist - The Trees
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David
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rated it 5 stars
Jul 30, 2022 01:11PM
I'm a bit more than halfway through with this. I think what's so impressive about Everett's versatility is that he uses the form appropriate to the story. Here, the cinematic feel, coupled with the buddy cop conventions, really seem to work. He's drawing you in so you don't want to look away.
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absolutely and the humour is crucial also.
Agreed. This is in places laugh out loud funny.
As we discussed elsewhere not sure (m)any books pass the LOL test but I did almost snigger a couple of times.
Wickedly funny at times. eg. Ho, Chi, Minh!
Read this today in audio with no stops. It is nicely done. I found it to be a bit satirical and at times humorous, but very effective in telling what white supremacy has been and is in the US. Reading and writing the names was extraordinarily effective. It bears no resemblance to The Sellout. I had to listen to the last 10 minutes three times before accepting that I had reached the end.
lark wrote: "Lee I also thought the US cover was extraordinary. Part of what I loved about this novel is the way it extends the story of lynching beyond black men in the south. The cover is full of names that y..."I admired that too, didn't expect Leo Frank to be one of the names included, but glad he was, since the case exposed so much about anti-Semitism in America at the time.
But that's part of what makes me hesitate about reading this, reinforced by David's comment on Till, I've read so many non-fiction/historical accounts of lynching, I'm not clear what this is likely to be doing/saying that hasn't already been said in other forms.
That’s a fair question, Alwynne. I think the primary audience of this would be Americans who see lynching as isolated events in the past and not an ongoing genocide.
The prayer of Doctor Reverend Fondle at the start of chapter 16 had me in tears from laughing...
Agreed David “Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over a hundred years, no one notices. Where there are no mass graves, no one notices. American outrage is always for show. It has a shelf life. If that Griffin book had been Lynched Like Me, America might have looked up from dinner or baseball or whatever they do now. Twitter?”
David wrote: "That’s a fair question, Alwynne. I think the primary audience of this would be Americans who see lynching as isolated events in the past and not an ongoing genocide."Thanks David, that makes sense, although depressing as hell, given how well-documented this is.
My initial reaction to that aim was whether the people to whom that is news aren’t the sort of people likely to read the book. Which is a general problem literary fiction has - preaching to the converted. But again (made a similar comment on After Sappho) that is where the Booker has power - by putting books into the hands of readers who otherwise would not have read them.
Fair point and I tend to forget too that a lot of people avoid non-fiction, so novels like this can be vital in introducing them to historical events/ideas they might not otherwise encounter.
Yes definitely one of those - I read no non-fiction at all most years.
Along the lines of “who/what is this book for?” this exchange at the end of the Tin House podcast interview that David posted at the start of this thread deals with that question:DN: As we come to a close, I want to return to something else that Jesse Ball said that I loved. He said something which he attributed to the Russian writer, Daniel Harms. Harms said, “A poem, if thrown at a pane of glass, should break the glass.” Ball interprets this line for himself as the effect being the crucial thing. Ball says, “That’s the approach I try to take, not to be vain with the success of the writing as writing but rather its effect.” In that realm, you’ve talked a lot about how you feel like the reader, not the writer, is the one who constructs the meaning of the book and you go farther, and say “The writer,” as you said earlier in this interview, “is the worst person to ask what a work means.” You go even farther and said in an interview in France with Claude Julien, “Every time I finish a book, I know less than when I started. I think I know something when I start writing and, as the problems I approach become more complex and interesting I realize that everything I thought I knew was wrong. After eighteen books, I know considerably less than most people. I’m well on my way to knowing nothing, which is my goal, I guess.” But you’ve also said that the ending of The Trees, the way it ends for you is a call to arms for the reader. That perhaps you’re throwing this book at a pane of glass, hoping the glass will break. That maybe even if you have no control over the reader in his or her meaning making around the novel, your life, and the life of the novel of now parted ways, that it’s up to us now to make it what it will be and that—I know you’re allergic to this—maybe you have this desired effect in mind. Is that fair to say that the call to arms at the end or what you’ve called that, maybe the throwing of the poem at the glass?
PE: I suppose we’re always doing that but again, I can’t control anything that happens once the words are let go. I can’t stand at bookstores and tell everybody as they leave, the dozens of people that might buy my book, what it means, what it should mean. In fact, if it was going to mean exactly what I think it means, I probably wouldn’t write because there’s no adventure in that. The adventure is the fact that sometimes, the poem will break the glass and sometimes, it won’t. That’s the real thing I want to understand. The clear fact that I choose to write fiction to make a living is ample evidence that I’m mentally deficient and that you shouldn’t listen to anything about the world I say. [laughter] On the other hand, I have a way of seeing the world that might change the way someone views it or calcify. Who knows? That’s thrilling.
One is reminded of“Joe ran downstairs. He took his knife and hacked and snapped and tugged a branch from the pear tree and levered a granite cobble from the paving of the yard and carried it up to the room in both hands. He stood a step away from the glass and held the cobble above his head. ‘Right! Cop this, you great nowt!’ With all his strength Joe threw the cobble at the glass. It hit, and dropped to the floor. The glass did not break. The mirror sang.”
I read on this post someone's comment about the cinematic slant of this novel, and I couldn't agree more. It's not only reminiscent of early John Waters and Tarantino but also the 70s stand-up humor of Carlin and Pryor: crude, rude, socially unacceptable and hilarious. Initially, the mystery is confined to a few murders in a small town in Mississippi, but it soon becomes a national conundrum. As the body count escalates and the short chapters become more episodic, it takes a bit of concentration to keep up, but it's worth the effort. A great cast of fascinating characters with equally fascinating names propel this riveting story. The overtly political conclusion and the cryptic ending slightly spoiled the experience for me, but the journey was an absolute hoot.
For those in the UK are print copies available? Neither the publisher nor Amazon appear to have any.
Scott I understand Everett teaches a class on the American Western and uses Blazing Saddles for his last class.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Scott I understand Everett teaches a class on the American Western and uses Blazing Saddles for his last class."Fantastic. I wish I'd had a professor that cool.
David wrote: "That’s a fair question, Alwynne. I think the primary audience of this would be Americans who see lynching as isolated events in the past and not an ongoing genocide."I was thinking about your point about the book and it made me think of an article I read a while back that made a strong impression which linked genocide, lynching and policies on Covid - which makes this sound even more timely. When it's finally available again I'll take the plunge.
The article I was thinking of is this one, don't know if you remember it at all:
https://newrepublic.com/article/15776...
Alwynne wrote: "I was thinking about your point about the book and it made me think of an article I read a while back that made a strong impression which linked genocide, lynching and policies on Covid - which makes this sound even more timely. When it's finally available again I'll take the plunge.The article I was thinking of is this one, don't know if you remember it at all"
I remember that article when it came out (2 years ago now!) and I'll read it again.
I think a lot of liberal minded white Americans have come to an understanding of structural racism that, ironically, can blind us to the reality that actual violence still occurs with regularity.
Very relevant article thank you. There is a Mary Turner (mentioned in the article) in the list of lynching victims listed in the book which seemed particularly poignant ….
My copy just arrived. I’m guessing all the names in the background of the cover are victims of lynching.http://museumandmemorial.eji.org/ Has a visual reminder of all the lynchings for which there has not yet been justice.
All the statues of Confederate generals should be replaced with monuments to the men, women, and children that survived enslavement and whose descendants continue to fight for justice to this day.
I realized that I don’t often read books with American references like the Piggly Wiggly, Sam’s Club, or M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-P-P-I.
Culture shock, Wendy. You’re back in ‘Merica.
I just finished this. I won't say "enjoyed" (although a lot of it is really funny I have to say), but I thought it was excellent. And the combination of humour and darkness somehow works really well.
You weren’t the only one thinking of Rosco P Coltrane as you read the opening chapters but as I posted under your review that very comparison added to the book’s strength for me as I was reflecting as I read those chapters how I think on the Dukes of Hazzard as a great programme of my childhood and was very unaware at 10-13 (and not really until much later) say of the significance of the “good old boys” car’s name, horn tune or even the flag. I think that fits the book’s fundamental theme of how America is very good at covering up its transgressions.
I just finished reading The Trees and absolutely loved it. I have never read anything by Everett before and am eager to explore his backlist. For the record, I was not a fan of The Sellout, and The Trees felt completely different to me. I thought the ending was extremely well-done, because the moral ambiguity is compelling. I understand the points that this is perhaps too straight-forward to be shortlisted, but it's so intelligently done, with so much underlying the basic narrative, and I think very few authors could have pulled it off. I also understand the point about how American this novel is, but of course Booth is as well (and I think this is a much, much stronger work).
This is a novel that I am going to be recommending widely.
I would be happy (and not surprised) to see this shortlisted - the simplicity was only an issue for me as I had believed Everett to be an experimental writer and so had different expectations - and he is it’s just here is experimentation is restricted to borrowing a genre. The moral ambiguity question - in an extremely similar context (is retributive justice moral) - reappears in Seven Moons in perhaps an even more nuanced form. The two books make a very interesting comparison
What was your (perhaps with spoilers added) take on the ending Cindy.
GY, when Linda posted about the book, she said that she had to listen to the last part three times before she accepted that she had come to the end. So I had been anticipating a cliff-hanger type ending. And maybe that is what Everett wrote. But to me, it actually seemed fairly clear what the main characters were going to decide to do. Maybe that's because of how I feel about the historical events underlying the novel and about the current state of race relations in the US. I found the ending pretty satisfying.I guess actually I am trying to answer your question without spoilers!
I am more than half done and I love this book. I am eager to read the other Everett books on my shelf. I don’t think it’s a Booker book, but that might be because I’m not used to seeing such culturally American books on the Booker.
I would argue that America is not very good at covering up its transgressions, they are right out there in the open. Much as the immigration transgressions and violence against immigrants in the UK are not well hidden.
Sadly, neither nation seems to abide by the will of the majority. Most Americans and I assume most Brits are fair minded, welcoming people, but the minority of evil doers create a lot of pain.
WndyJW wrote: "I would argue that America is not very good at covering up its transgressions..."WndyJW, I think covering up isn't even on the radar - I see two camps on race = those that want full exposure of transgressions and those that celebrate them. A few posts ago you talked about the dream of replacing all the Confederate general statues with statues honoring the enslaved. That made my heart happy to a moment just to imagine that. Apologies to all for getting off track. And now, back to books!
I would say the US is very good at displaying our transgressions in plain sight and mythologizing them so they aren't recognized as transgressions. Think about how many states, counties, and towns carry Native American names, mythologizing the former inhabitants who are in fact the victims of our genocide.
America has a great talent for hiding its own transgressions” is a direct quote from the author about the book in his Guardian interview.
I read this about 6 months ago, and then I convinced many of my friends to read it too. It’s one of those (somewhat rare) Booker longlisted books that I’m comfortable recommending to a wider reading audience and not just those readers who prefer “literary fiction.” I think the humor is a big part of that. And although this book appears to be a straightforward narrative on the surface, there’s so much going on beneath the surface. Everett loads all that into this book without slowing down the momentum of the primary narrative. That’s a masterful accomplishment! The book can be read and enjoyed on a more surface level, but it also rewards a deeper analysis.
All that said, I think the story gets a bit overblown in the end. I won’t say more about the details so as not to spoil the book for anyone, but I think the book could’ve been more powerful without some of the zaniness.
He has said he originally thought about but immediately rejected a Zombie novel …. But it gets very close
Yes it does at the end. And I wish it had not done that, actually. I liked it when it felt much more concrete and real.
That was one of the things that lead me to round down to four stars. Seven Moons is if anything more “out of control” but it’s throughout the book from page 1 and also draws on Hindu mythology so feels more natural within the book somehow
It sort of has a cinematic similarity in Tarantino's "From Dusk Till Dawn" screenplay in the sudden swerve that movie takes in a new direction, when you think you know what kind of story and genre you've got, and then... I liked being taken by the surprise, but I can see why others wouldn't be as positive.
I loved this and took a base pleasure in the revenge, but I don’t feel this is a Booker worthy book. The writing is fine, it’s serviceable and that’s all it needs to be, but it’s not a complex story with many levels of meaning, fully realized characters, or a new way of looking at an under represented culture. It’s a delicious vengeance fantasy against stereotypical bigots that we can all laugh at and every American appalled by the 1000s of lynchings and the ongoing police brutality can read and enjoy well deserved justice.If this wasn’t nominated for the Booker I would focus only on the things I liked about it, but in the context of a literary award I’m not sure this should make the shortlist. I know this puts me in a small minority in the group, maybe a minority of one.
I can’t help but think that the horror of lynchings, the terror in which so many black families in the south lived, the daily humiliations and injustices, the ongoing injustices, and the unbelievable courage of Mamie Till deserve a more serious telling than a story that lets white people laugh at the buffoonery of good ol’ boys who killed “n-ers” and (view spoiler), but who am I to tell Percival Everett how he should handle immoral justice and justified immorality?
I started to make a comment on the general Booker 2022 thread where we've been discussing the american-ness of the american books nominated but i think my comment works better over here. Sorry for the weird capitalization errors, my keyboard is almost completely shot...esp the 'a' key...It feels like we're possibly overestimating how much of The Trees would be immediately familiar to an american reader, vs. a British reader. I like to imagine we american readers all know who "Emmett Till" is but beyond this iconic name I think a majority of readers are going in blind.
I had no idea who the people were in the first chapter when I read it. Everett deliberately obscures the id's of these people by giving them nicknames, too.
Most of all Everett goes out of his way to make this novel about much more than Black men in the south, to the point where the novel feels very international to me.
There is a plaque on a building in downtown San Jose, my closest city, that marks the massacre and obliteration of Chinatown in 1887. The whole community was burned to the ground.
Until I read The Trees--ok, I am stupid, and white--I hadn't totally made the connection between this event, and the Tulsa race massacre of Black people in 1921, and so many others. The borders of the story are the contiguous U.S. states but Everett is making a broader statement about the ubiquity of racism and white supremacy that makes this book feel very universal to me.
I agree, Lark, but I don’t think you’re unfamiliar with the Tulsa massacre because your stupid and white, we are unfamiliar with much of black history because there is concerted effort to obliterate that history and any history of non-white, non-Christians in the US.
I think this novel is a really strong contender. I finished it yesterday and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I have to say that I was a little surprised to find that Emmett Till's murder isn't widely known outside of the US, but then again my academic research is focused on American literature, so I think I just took it for fact that what happened to Till was a widely known fact.I also don't know if most people here are aware, but interestingly, last month there was an arrest warrant found for Carolyn Bryant (who features as a character in this novel) from 1955 and there's widespread agreement that she should be jailed for her involvement in Till's murder. I think that makes the novel's themes of America's history of lynching haunting the present day even more poignant. As a side note, I loved how Everett handled Carolyn Bryant's role within this novel.
Emmett has family members still living who were living when Emmett was killed and they’re pushing for the arrest of Carolyn. I don’t see why she shouldn’t be simply because she’s in her late 80s and dying of cancer. One day in a prison hospital with no access to her family is a small price to pay for her crime.There is a new movie coming out soon about Emmett. I don’t think I can watch it. I watched some YouTube documentaries and the parts about his mother Mamie are as heartbreaking as you would expect.
I have to say I'm a bit nervous about posting about this one considering the very positive reviews I'm seeing.This seems to me the sort of novel you take on a beach holiday race through it (it is a very easy read) get it covered in sun cream and either throw it away or just leave it behind. And there's nothing wrong with that but as a contender for a major literary fiction prize I'm afraid I just don't see it.
The writing is ok, nothing more.
As a crime novel it didn't really work for me as it is just too obvious what is going on.
Yes, it is making some important points about racism but so many better books do the same with a lot more subtlety and intelligence.
The plot descended into farce as far as I was concerned by the end.
As a whole it seemed like a bad cross between any really average American detective series from the 1970s or 80s and a typical Louis Theroux documentary about the worst possible American family or society.
At times the humour saves it but by the end even that just seems like the type of bad puns and jokes surrounding character names I would have tried to make as a 15 year old.
I also don't think this is an overtly violent novel. There is a lot of violence in it but is sort of "off screen" in a way as most of the violent acts themselves are not described in detail and the fact that it is the same violent act that happens each time sort of made it less shocking for me personally.
I would pair this one with Nightcrawling another book dependent upon a true crime in America for its subject matter.
The one good thing about it is that it is so quick to read but
for my account it provided nothing that I found either new or original.
I’m with you, BookerMT2. The humor was mostly “dad jokes,” and as I said above, I’m not comfortable reading a funny book about lynching victims. That said, I saw a headline about Everett titled, The Deadly Serious Humor of Percival Everett.
The originality lies in its recognition of lynching / police violence as an ongoing genocide and presenting that in a compelling way that is in fact readable. I think it depends on what you look for in a literary prize.
Sometimes it takes a kick in the pants, rather than subtlety and intelligence, to be heard. And while I prefer subtlety and intelligence, I respect someone who can so creatively take the kick.But BookerMT2 and WndyJW, your points add value to the discussion.
Agreed. I think it’s an entirely sensible view to think this isn’t literary enough to win the Booker prize.
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