REVIEW - The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers

Cover of The Overstay. Review by Markus McDowell

This was a difficult book to review. The writing is excellent and enthralling if a bit plodding at times. The research done by the author into the science of trees, and the portrayal of it through the characters, is fascinating. But the story loses its way about two thirds of the way through, and becomes something different. More below on that.

The book was on the New York Times Bestseller list for over a year, and it won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, as well the William Dean Howells Medal and being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

From Amazon:

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

The first half or more of the book is the best part. It is almost a series of short stories, tied together by the hero, which is a chestnut tree. The varying characters (some of whom never meet) share one thing in common: their interest and love of trees. Whether it be as a farmer, a child growing up on the farm, an engineer, a college student, and even a video game developer, they all are fascinated by trees. At times, the description and depiction of trees remind one of Tolkien’s Ents, with community and an incipient sentience.

The book begins with a simple tree and a farm, and then other children, and their father, all with varying degrees of interest in the life of a tree on the land. The devastating Dutch Elm disease is introduced, told through those who document it, study it, or just experience it through their fascination with trees. Eventually, we are treated to the story of an outcast, black-sheep character whose fascination with trees leads to become a scientist and discover that trees communicate with each other, take care of each other, and grow and live in community. It is all well told, the characters are interesting, and I always enjoy learning as I read. I used to backpack extensively in the Sierra mountains, this reading helped me rediscover my appreciation of trees.

But in the latter part of the novel, we are suddenly with environmental activists, trying to stop logging and other killings of trees. Some of the characters seek reasonable concessions through teaching and debate; others engage in civil disobedience, while still others believe the way to change is violence (which eventually results in a death). We are then treated to the rest of the life of these characters as they fear the FBI will find them, we learn of their “new” lives as they hide their identities, and then betrayal, more death, and some stirring speeches.

The problem with it is the sudden shift from a delightful story about people and trees to a political screed that is not subtle. While there are a couple of brief scenes which serve to humanize a particular logger or two (“just doing his job”), the most part, the logging companies and governmental entities are faceless, selfish, unbending purveyors of destruction. Things are never that simple (me good, you evil), and I would have liked to read more ambiguity.

I can’t say that the author intended the portray the activists as pure in motive, for some of them do struggle with their tactics and the morality of it. My problem is twofold. First, there are so many well-written books in a variety of genres that, in one way or another, depict the trope “if we don’t take care of the earth it will die and life will be miserable.” It isn’t that there is a problem with the message so much as there is nothing new to say about it because it is so ubiquitous. I’m not sure anyone disagrees that we should take care of natural resources. The debate is about the method, the how, and the compromises that need to be made. This novel explores a little of those issues, but not much. The theme (of the latter half of the book seems to be that humans are terribly blind and selfish and will destroy the world if they don’t wake up. We’ve all been beat over the head with that message, and I’m not sure there is continued need to keep pointing. Something new, something fresh, addressing the issue would be nice. This book does not do that.

But more problematic for me was the sudden shift, where the novel becomes something else. The first part was a series of delightful stories that showed the wonder of trees and invited the reader to learn, enjoy, and embrace nature along with the characters. The latter half turns political and suddenly it is not trees who are the center of the story, but the activists.

The latter part of the novel, for me, will dissolve into the vast literary works that have done the same thing in the same way. But the first part will stay with me every time I see a tree.