The Trees
by Percival Everett
Nominations: Booker Finalist 2022, PEN/Faulkner Longlist 2022, PEN/Jean Stein Finalist 2022
Date Read: January 3, 2023
The Trees is a puzzler – part historical fiction, part sci-fi zombie apocalypse – but oh so satisfying. What you initially think are a couple of local murders of retribution become a national phenomenon, gathering white bodies in a cosmic search for justice that never came.
The initial murders we are privy to follow a pattern – the white victim is strangled with barbed wire, beaten horrifically and his balls are chopped off. Making this even more macabre is the body of a black man is always found at the scene and often goes missing after it’s been bagged.
The initial victims in Money, MS are members of the white mob that killed Emmett Till, as well as his accuser, a white girl at the time, who later recanted and confessed she contrived the entire thing. The heartbreaking part of this is that it’s all true. Till’s original accuser did confess to her guilt but as one of Mama Z states in the book, “you can’t unshoot a gun.” Her admission doesn’t bring Till back, nor does it absolve her in any way.
The Everett weaves together fact and fiction to paint a devastating picture of the legacy of racism and lynching in America. Mama Z, in her house and under her own steam, has compiled records of every lynching in America since her birth in 1913. None of these lynchings were ever prosecuted or convicted. Most were deemed, unbelievably, to be suicides. They were a form of racial terrorism to keep the free black population afraid and in line. No amount of time passing can absolve our country of its legacy of slavery and the subsequent oppression that ensued and continues to this day.
As the detectives continue to unravel this hairball of history that has oozed into the present, the same M.O. begins to pop up all around the country until roving bands of undead black zombies are wandering through towns and cities, exacting their own form of justice. They seek out only those whites that ever engaged in racist acts. What began as a concerted effort of a group of people in Money, MS for revenge unleashes a national sob that tells those harmed and forgotten to Rise.
Evoking notes of The Underground Railroad and World War Z, The Trees is rooted in fact and branches out into glorious, satisfying fictional revenge. This novel left me wishing a similar justice would be found IRL.
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