What I’m Reading: The Trees by Percival Everett

Synopsis: “Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner 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.”

My take: Percival Everett is brilliant, and if you’ve read Erasure you already know that. Or if you’ve seen the film adaptation, American Fiction, which brought Cord Jefferson an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and which included brilliant performances by Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Leslie Uggams, John Ortiz, and Erika Alexander, then you already know Everett is a master of the form. Either way, let me introduce you to Everett’s 2021 horrific satire, The Trees. The book is set in present-day Money, Mississippi, which is the town where Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. I won’t give anything away, but just know that the horror in this book has echoes of the brutality done to Till. This is a quick, edge-of-your seat read, with mystery, propulsive dialogue, and unforgettable characters. The text works on multiple levels, and the pages will devastate and haunt your soul.