Powers organizes The Overstory into four arboreal parts: roots, trunk, crown and seeds. The Overstory challenges its human reader to look beyond the human and greet all the living. It is so novel in its craft and so touching in its humanity. After reading it slowly over the course of nearly six months, I realized that The Overstory is in many ways a book that defies categorization. Of course, in knowing that the redwoods feature in Powers’ undeniable brilliant novel, I foresaw only one small portion of this book’s masterpiece. I knew enough about Powers’ novel to think it a fitting book to pair with the trip. I began the journey through The Overstory (for a journey it most certainly is) last fall as my family set off on a camping road trip which would take us through California’s Giant Sequoias and Coastal Redwoods.
With its beautiful writing and many story lines, Richard Powers’ The Overstory (2018), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019, definitely belongs to the latter category. Some books are slow because it takes page and pages of reading before a reader fully connects with the story, but the most delicious books are simply too rich of prose and complex crafting to read quickly.
Some books beg for fast reading as characters, dialog, and even setting quickly compel the reader into the plot others long to be savored over time.
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