The trees
The trees (o The Trees, by its original title in English) is a crime novel of humor and horror written by American university professor and author Percival Everett. The work was first published in 2021 by Graywolf Press and Influx Press. Later, it was translated into Spanish by Javier Calvo and marketed by the publishing house De Conatus.
This is one of Everett's most notable and praised books, and it is also one of his most thematically complex. Itself, has achieved the favor of many readers and members of specialized critics, among them, Los Angeles Review of Books, Joyce Carol Oates and Carole V. Bell. Most have advocated for Percival's literary genius and the social criticism she addresses in her work.
Synopsis of The trees
About the fight for civil rights in the United States
In 1955, an American teenager named Emmett Till, belonging to the country's black community, was kidnapped, tortured, lynched and brutally murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14. It all happened after the boy was accused of sexually offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, at her family's grocery store.
The brutality of his murder with —notable racist overtones—and the acquittal of his murderers caused great impact, and made us reflect on the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
The trees takes as reference this and other events that occurred since then. It is necessary to note that the crimes exposed are seasoned with the author's acid humor.
An ode to poetic justice
In Money, Mississippi, a white man called Junior Junior He is found dead in his own home next to the body of an unknown African-American subject. When the bodies are taken to the morgue, it is soon discovered that the unidentified black man has disappeared.
Later, and for no apparent reason, The body that had been stolen from the mortuary is found again at Junior's cousin's house., Wheat, who has also been murdered.
Shortly after, the “John Doe”—the marker name used in the United States when the identity of the victim is unknown—disappears again. Later, two black detectives of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, Ed Morgan and Jim Davis, They are sent to Money to investigate the situation.
Ed and Jim go to a local bar frequented by Money's black community, where They discover that both Junior and Wheat were related to Carolyn Bryant. Detectives later believe the missing body bears a striking resemblance to that of Emmett Till's battered body.
An unjustified homicide is just a ticket to future chaos.
More bodies begin to accumulate throughout the country. Each precedes one or more white men who have been murdered alongside the bodies of black or Asian subjects. Meanwhile, Ed and Jim manage to discover the identity of the body at the original crime scene.. They then trace it to a company that sells human remains for scientific purposes.
As well They begin to suspect that Gertrude Penstock —a white waitress they met at Money— and his great-grandmother Mama Z —one hundred and five years old— They are involved in the first murders. Unknown to Ed and Jim, this is revealed to be true, as Gertrude and a group of like-minded black people had orchestrated the deaths of Wheat and Junior Junior as retaliation for their father's involvement in the murder of Emmett Till. .
There is no more connection than the pain of the victims
Despite what was previously found, there is no real connection between the original murder and all the others. It is here where Fictional historical facts collide with full-blown fiction, as reports of the other crimes reveal that large groups of black and Asian men who seem immune to bullets have begun to duplicate the deaths orchestrated by Mama Z and Gertrude.
About the development and writing of the work
To write the novel, Everett researched lynchings in the United States. On the other hand, To carry out his studies, he bought books that dealt with elements of lynching, documenting himself so thoroughly that he managed to develop a section dedicated to the subject in his library.
On a narrative level, the author attributes the humor of his novels, including The Trees, to the influence of Mark Twain.
About the Author
Percival Everett was born on December 22, 1956, in Fort Gordon, Georgia, United States. He studied Philosophy at the University of Miami. Additionally, he was instructed in a variety of different subjects, such as biochemistry and mathematical logic. She then earned a master's degree in fiction from Brown University in 1982. Throughout her literary career He has written children's books, poetry, detective novels and much more.
Other books by Percival Everett
Novels
- Sudder (1983);
- Walk Me to the Distance (1985);
- Cutting Lisa / Cutting Lisa (1986);
- Zulus / Zulus (1990);
- For Her Dark Skin (1990);
- God's Country (1994);
- Watershed / Basin (1996);
- The Body of Martin Aguilera / The body of Martín Aguilera (1997);
- Frenzy / Frenzy (1997);
- Glyph / Glyph (1999);
- Grand Canyon, Inc / Grand Canyon, Inc (2001);
- Erasure / Erasure (2001);
- A History of the African American people / A history of the African American people (2004);
- American Desert / American Desert (2004);
- Wounded / Injured (2005);
- The Water Cure (2007);
- I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel / I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel (2009);
- Assumption (2011);
- Percival Everett by Virgil Russell: A Novel / Percival Everett by Virgil Russell: a novel (2013);
- So Much Blue (2017);
- Telephone / Telephone (2020);
- No (2022);
- James (2024)
Tales
- The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair: Stories / The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair: Stories (1987);
- Big Picture: Stories / Big Picture: Stories (1996);
- Damned if I do: Stories / Damned if I do (2004);
- Half an Inch of Water / Half an Inch of Water (2015)
Poetry
- re:f, gesture / re:f, gesture (2006);
- Abstraktion und Einfühlung / Abstraction and empathy (2008);
- Swimming Swimmers Swimming (2010);
- There Are No Names for Red (2010);
- Trout's Lie (2015)
Children's literature
- The One That Got Away (1992)
Collaborations
- My California: Journeys by Great Writers / My California: Journeys of Great Writers (2004)