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The Trees

A Novel

by Percival Everett

Narrator Bill Andrew Quinn

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Length 7 hours 42 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“Has anyone banned this book yet? Because hoo-boy is it the ultimate in bannable books -nin all of the best possible ways. It's a satire so over the top (again, in all of the best possible ways) that you could almost call it a romp. A romp...about the legacy of lynching in America? Apparently so. The Trees is laugh-out-loud funny, and also deadly serious - and when it's serious, it will knock the air right out of your lungs. I can't wait to read every single word this prolific evil genius has ever written.”
— Rachel • The Book Table

Bookseller recommendation

“I don't know what I was expecting, but 'gruesomely hilarious 70's-cop-show/zombie flick mashup with enough satire to satisfy the hippest professor, and enough slapstick to keep any reader guffawing while barreling through the suspense' is what the book delivered. By which I mean to say: this book is downright Shakespearean. I'll probably listen again to tease out the themes, appreciate the snappy dialogue and hell-bent pacing, and mull over the social justice, but I expect I'll laugh even harder the second time. What a wild ride!”
— Nialle • The Haunted Bookshop

Summary

An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone

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.

The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America's pulse.

Fiction Mystery & Thriller