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. Kira Jane Buxton
Christie skillfully teases out the details in a page-turner of a saga that complements sylvan books such as Sometimes a Great Notion and The Overstory, one that closes with Jake s realization that, tangled lineage and all, a family is less a tree than a collection of individuals pooling their resources through intertwined roots. Beguilingly structured, elegantly written: ecoapocalyptic but with hope that somehow we ll make it. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A rugged, riveting novel . . . This superb family saga will satisfy fans of Richard Powers s The Overstory while offering a convincing vision of potential ecological destruction. Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Michael Christie is the author of the novel If I Fall, If I Die, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Kirkus Prize and selected as a New York Times Editors Choice. His linked collection of stories, The Beggar s Garden, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and won the City of Vancouver Book Award. His essays and book reviews have appeared in TheNew York Times, TheWashington Post, and TheGlobe and Mail. A former carpenter and homeless-shelter worker, Christie divides his time between Victoria and Galiano Island, British Columbia, where he lives with his wife and two sons in a timber-frame house that he built himself.