Showing results for "The Life Tree" in Literary Fiction

Percival Everett's The Trees is a must-listen that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

When her favourite beech tree is felled in a storm, Ann feels as if someone has died. But when long-hidden seed packets are found inside the trunk, Ann realizes there are more memories than her own lurking within the ancient tree. A century earlier, head gardener William Hatherwick and Hester Mordaunt, mistress of Beechgrave, share a love for the mighty estate - and an undeclared love for each other. But when war breaks out, William is sent to the battlefields of France, and as the conflict rages on, Hester grieves beneath the tree.

Fourteen-year-old March Wong knows everything there is to know about trees. They are his passion and his obsession, even after his recent falls - and despite the state's threat to take him away from his mother if she can't keep him from getting hurt. But the young autistic boy cannot resist the captivating pull of the Pacific Northwest's lush forests just outside his back door.

Thirty years ago, Martin Owenby came to New York City with dreams of becoming a writer. Now his existence revolves around cheap Scotch and weekend flings with equally damaged men. When he learns that his older brother, Leon, has gone missing, he must return to the Owenby farm in Solace Fork, North Carolina, to assist in the search. But that means facing a past filled with regrets, the family that never understood him, the girl whose heart he broke, and the best friend who has faithfully kept the home fires burning.

Following the sudden death of Sebby’s mother, his father takes Sebby to live in the family’s summerhouse, hoping it will give them both time and space to recover. But Sebby’s father deteriorates in this new isolation, leaving Sebby struggling to understand his mother’s death alone, dreaming and even reliving moments of her life. He ultimately reaches out to a favorite teacher back home and to two nearby children who force him out of the void of the past and help him to exist in the present.

The Widow and the Tree features a 500-year-old Ghosthead Oak, whose stately presence has borne witness to the rise and fall of generations, to the hopes and dreams of untold lives, and to the births and deaths of innumerable residents alongcoastal Alabama. So why would a widow enter a biker bar and hire a man to chainsaw the cherished landmark?