Review: The Trees

The Trees by Percival Everett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Working my way through Percival Everett's bibliography in reverse order, I've now found one that's very different from all the other books I've read from him, because it covers very dark subject matter indeed - confronting the history of White supremacy and lynching, with references to some of the most infamous such incidents in American history, and also some very long lists of historical lynching deaths. Not just Black folks, but Asian too, and the lists appear not only in the text, but on the cover as well.

While the book primarily takes place in Mississippi, the narrative travels all over America, to places like Minnesota and California, to remind the reader that racism isn't only a Southern issue, but an issue for the whole country to confront. The book does come from a dark place in history past and present - the book did come out pretty quickly on the heels of the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests in 2020 - but it's also still undeniably a Percival Everett book, with a few glimmers of his offbeat sense of humor still making themselves known every once in a while. Mostly in the form of some very silly punny names for side characters, as well as some fast paced prose and bluntly witty comments ("You don't mind if I say this is a fucked up town" being one of my personal favorite lines, just from how the delivery sounds in my head.)

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