THE OVERSTORY

by Richard Powers

I confess, I had never heard of Richard Powers before my friend Jane recommended that I read The Overstory -- because it was good and because it had won the Pulitzer Prize. I’m not sure how I missed Powers, who has published 11 books prior to The Overstory. But now that I’ve read the book, I can understand why it won the prestigious prize.

The Overstory is epic at just over 500 pages. Powers begins his story by introducing eight sets of characters, each with their own chapter. Initially, I was unclear how all of these people could possible come together. But they do. And the overarching phenomenon that brings them together is trees. Through these many characters, Powers explores what trees mean to us, how we interact with them and how they communicate amongst themselves. It sounds far-fetched, right? But The Overstoryis a masterpiece with layers upon layers of stories, each more compelling than the last. There is Neely Mehta, the young Indian American who grows up to write code for the most popular computer games in the country and his quest to make those games more closely resemble the real world. There are Ray Brinkman and Dorothy Cazaly who inhabit a strange push and pull relationship that takes a catastrophic event before they finally learn to support each other. And Mimi Ma, a successful engineer who gets pulled into environmental terrorism after a beloved stand of trees outside her office get bulldozed in the dark of night.

These and other complicated characters make The Overstory a book that you will not soon forget. As Geraldine Brooks said in her review: “The best novels change the way you see. Richard Powers’ The Overstory does this. Haunting.” (Liz)