I love this book! It’s Perceval Everett at the height of his powers, challenging and engaging authors through narrative tropes and conventions we know well. The book maintains a crisp pace, excellent characterization, and a plot so historically resonant that readers won’t be able to dissociate the present from the past. This book will appeal to a broad range of readers and likely attract Everett new fans. 10/10.

Goodness, I don't know how to describe this book or if I should even try. More impactful I think the less known going in the better. What the author has accomplished here is amazing. I've never read anything like it. An author that can take racism and horrific crimes, making this impactful but also using a great deal of tongue in cheek humor and ending by turning into a horror story. Let's just say it makes a very strong point. I'll also add that as is often said, revenge is a dish best served cold or as a detective in the story states, "The shit has hit the fan."

What an incredible book. The Trees is a page-turner mixing thriller with social commentary about a series of murders in Money, Mississippi - the town where Emmett Till was lynched. The initial crimes lead to two Black state detectives being called in to investigate, and the result is a darkly satirical story blending present and past and bringing to life the history and modern echoes of racist violence and terror. The writing and language is so stark, with every word used to maximum effect. Would highly recommend. The book does contain frequent racial slurs in dialogue.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

3.5 Sharp as a knife and not for the faint of heart. I found this title wildly original and a challenging read (mostly due to the wonky pagination of my electronic ARC). It's not too often I come across an African-American revenge fantasy -- perhaps I am just not looking in the right places -- but this was an incredibly satisfying festival of justice and pain for the worst this country has to offer. Bravo to Mr. Everett for a dark, entertaining read and some of the best dialogue I have read in recent memory!

The Trees had me turning. the. pages. Wow. While I found some parts to be a tad unbelievable I truly couldn't tear myself away from this.

After the ingenious Telephone, especially, will read anything and everything by Everett. Included this latest in the autumn instalment of Thrills & Chills, my seasonal round-up of crime and mystery thrillers for Zed, the books section at Zoomer magazine.
Full review feature at link.

Love, love, loved this book. It’s a wild ride despite the very serious subject matter of lynching. I reviewed it for NPR. Here’s the open:

At a certain point, dark social satire bleeds into horror. That can be powerful, but it can also very easily miss its target. Percival Everett's new novel The Trees hits just the right mark. It's a racial allegory grounded in history, shrouded in mystery, and dripping with blood. An incendiary device you don't want to put down.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039434714/percival-everett-the-trees-review

Percival Everett has been one of those authors on my "meaning to get to it" list for a long time -- and finally, I found my way in with this latest book. It's lean and mean and strange, not unlike the FBI scenes in any given Twin Peaks creation. Racists are being found brutally murdered... with a dead body next to them that looks just like the body of Emmett Till. But as strange as that sounds, the book is even weirder in the end and also deliciously funny. Everett loses control of the firehose every once and a while and so there's a bit of wild spray at times, but I fell right through this and was changed by it.

“Southern trees bear a strange fruit…”

Eyebrows are raised, heads are scratched, and anxiety levels are elevated when two African American male cops from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and a female African American special agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, MS to investigate a series of similar and violent murders of “prominent” white citizens alongside a corpse who eerily resembles Emmett Till. The investigation leads them to Chicago and beyond - eventually releasing repressed memories, revealing long-kept secrets, and freeing some from a lifetime of guilt and shame. The interconnection is eventually revealed with the help of a back-woods centurion who seems to have a penchant for record-keeping and “root-working.”

At its core, this could be a call-out of America’s lack of accountability for the thousands murdered in the hands of lynch mobs and law enforcement officials. In this fictional world, there is some attempt at justice and retribution; albeit a bit otherworldly and Old Testament-ish (think “an eye-for-an-eye” type of vengeance).

Recommended for those who enjoy satire; for those who appreciate “race-y” humor (much stems from popular, politically incorrect stereotypes) because while the homicides were brutal, there is an underlying comedic tone that surfaces in nearly every scene: the character’s names (just brilliant), their interactions and dialogue with each other, their observations - all of it combined simply showcases the author’s creativity and genius. I loved it - I chuckled to myself throughout (literally laughed out loud at some of the scenes) and yet I wept when reading the names listed and thinking of the thousands that weren’t.

Well done!