A magnificent generational saga that charts a family’s rise and fall, its secrets and inherited crimes, from one of Canada’s most acclaimed novelistsLonglisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize • “A rugged, riveting novel . . . This superb family saga will satisfy fans of Richard Powers’s The Overstory.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“There are plenty of visionary moments laced into … plenty of visionary moments laced into [Christie’s] shape-shifting narrative. . . . Greenwood penetrates to the core of things.”—The New York Times Book Review
It’s 2038 and Jacinda (Jake) Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world’s last remaining forests. It’s 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, sprawled on his back after a workplace fall, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It’s 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father’s once vast and violent timber empire. It’s 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple-syrup camp squat, when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime, secrets, and betrayal that will cling to his family for decades.
And throughout, there are trees: a steady, silent pulse thrumming beneath Christie’s effortless sentences, working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood, and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.
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Quite possibly the best book I have read since Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road (which remains a Top 10 for me), this is a multi-generational “Cli-Fi” saga told over the course of many years and many layers where every act, no matter how small or well-(or not so well)- intentioned leaves a mark on our future. An absolute must-read for anyone interested in climate change or just plain good storytelling. If you only read one book this year, make it Greenwood.
too futuristic for me
Folks compare this to The Overstory by Richard Powers but that is not fair. Powers tells a story about trees using characters. While Christie definitely makes a statement about the future of forests his story seems to focus more on “family”. Specifically families that are built based on relationship not necessarily DNA. I think both are 5 star books but for different reasons.
I was given a copy of this book by Hogarth Publishers, a Random House imprint. This book was inspired by John Fowles’ nonfiction work “The Tree.” Additionally the book seems closely related to “The Overstory” by Richard Powers. The novel spans approximately 130 years of the generations of a family of loggers, misfits and conservationists ending in a dystopian future in 2038.
The Greenwood family “springs into life when two unrelated boys are found following the collision of two trains in 1908. Following their “adoption by a well to do miserly woman, the story moves on to WWI, logging empire building, the great crash and depression, abduction, betrayal, mystery, and fortunes made and lost all revolving around the Canadian 20th century. The world in 2038 is an ecological mess and trees are revered relics of an age that once existed, before the “great withering,” and the dusty demise of modern civilization.
Christie has done a masterful storytelling job, keeping the readers interest through the 500 pages. Some of the background about the ecological disaster that has occurred would be welcome. Some of the major characters, Willow in particular, are hardly likable, and yet the author still makes one care for them in spite of their shortcomings.
Do not judge this book to quickly. While the early pages may be confusing to some, continue. While not Steinbeck, “East of Eden” came to mind throughout. The epic story of a family and how history influenced them, and how they had impacted history.
an epic family saga that moves from the future into the past and back again, complex and beautifully told. A wonder of a novel.
Multi-generational, spanning 1908-2038, ‘Greenwood’ explores one family’s relationship with the great forests of Canada, and what ‘family’ means. The Greenwood family is indeed, unusual. Their personal stories include jumping trains, train wrecks, tapping maples, WW1, kidnapping, industrialism and the Crash, eco-warriors, social justice, the ‘Withering’, and so much more. Through each generation runs a deep and abiding connection with the great trees, and revelations about our society and how we interact with each other and the world around us.
And while the ending wasn’t what I wanted, it made sense, in terms of the Greenwood family and their historic association with the giants of the forest.
Well worth reading.
Ingeniously structured and with prose as smooth as beech bark, Michael Christie’s Greenwood is as compulsive as it is profound. A sweeping intergenerational saga that explores trees and their roots—from the precious evergreens that become commodities in the entertainment business of the future to the intricately tangled trees of family — all of it is dazzlingly delivered in a framework inspired by the actual growth rings of a tree. Every one of Greenwood’s characters burrowed their way into my heart. Beguilingly brilliant, timely, and utterly engrossing, Greenwood is one of my favorite reads in recent memory.