 First edition (US) | |
| Author | Percival Everett |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Graywolf Press (US) Influx Press (UK) |
Publication date | 2021 |
| Preceded by | Telephone |
| Followed by | Dr. No |
The Trees is a 2021 novel by American author Percival Everett, published by Graywolf Press.
Set predominantly in the small town of Money, Mississippi, the novel follows a series of murders that seem to follow identical patterns.
In Money, Mississippi, a white man called Junior Junior is found dead in his own home with the body of an unknown Black man beside him. When the bodies are taken to the morgue, it is soon discovered that the body of the unknown Black man has disappeared. The body is found again in the home of Junior Junior's cousin, Wheat, who has also been murdered. Shortly after, the body of the Black man disappears again.
Two Black detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, Ed Morgan and Jim Davis, are sent to Money to investigate the situation. Ed and Jim go to a local bar frequented by the Black community of Money where they discover that both Junior and Wheat are relatives of Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who accused the teenage Emmett Till of making sexual advances at her leading to his lynching and death. Ed and Jim believe that the disappearing body bears a striking resemblance to Emmett Till's battered body.
More bodies begin to pile up around the country. Each features one or more white men who have been castrated with the bodies of Black or Asian men beside them. Ed and Jim are able to find the identity of the Black man found at the original crime scene. They trace it to a company that sells bodies for research. They also begin to suspect Gertrude Penstock, a white-passing waitress they met in Money, and her 105 year old great-grandmother Mama Z are involved in the original murders.
Unbeknown to Ed and Jim, this is revealed to be true as Gertrude and a group of like-minded Black individuals had orchestrated the deaths of Wheat and Junior Junior as retaliation for their father's part in murdering Emmett Till. However they are baffled by the other murders.
Reports of the other murders reveal that large groups of Black and Asian men who appear impervious to bullets, have started duplicating the murders orchestrated by Mama Z and Gertrude.
To write the novel, Everett researched lynching in the United States. [1] For this research, Everett purchased books dealing with elements of lynching, enough to incidentally develop a "lynching section in [his] library". [1] Everett attributes the humor in his novels, including in The Trees, to the influence of Mark Twain. [2] [3]
The novel received mostly favorable reviews. [4] Mary F. Corey, in a positive review published by the Los Angeles Review of Books , wrote that the novel included a "Twainian level of wit and meanness". [5] Joyce Carol Oates called it "[r]eally profound writing...about subjects of great tragic and political significance. [6] Carole V. Bell, in a review published by NPR, also praised the novel, writing that the book is a "combination of whodunnit, horror, humor and razor blade sharp insight". [7]
| Year | Award | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction | Winner | [8] |
| Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction | Winner | [9] | |
| Booker Prize | Shortlist | [10] [11] [12] | |
| Hurston/Wright Legacy Award | Winner | [13] [14] |
Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote over 50 short stories, plays, and essays.
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an extreme form of informal group social control, and it is often conducted with the display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation. Instances of lynchings and similar mob violence can be found in every society.
Sumner is a town in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The population was 407 at the 2000 census. Sumner is one of the two county seats of Tallahatchie County. It is located on the west side of the county and the Tallahatchie River, which runs through the county north–south. The other county seat is Charleston, located east of the river. Charleston was the first county seat, as settlement came from the east, and it is the larger of the two towns.
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Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old teenager murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after accusations that he had whistled at a Caucasian grocery store cashier named Carolyn Bryant. For Emmett's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."
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