So far this year I’ve read some truly fantastic books, and then there have been books so unlike anything I’ve read before, or at least in a long while. The Trees definitely falls into the second category.
“If you want to know a place, you talk to its history.”
The small town of Money, Mississippi isn’t well-known. For now. Because two white men were brutally murdered, and no one can figure out how anyone could’ve gotten into to kill them. But even more perplexing is the fact that next to the body is another body, of a man who resembles Emmett Till. And that body keeps disappearing and appearing again.
Three Black investigators come to Money to try and determine what is happening. These murders seem to be revenge killings, but then this same thing keeps happening across the country. To understand the genesis of the murders requires an understanding of the history of lynching in America.
As serious as this subject is—and Percival Everett has given it and racism the attention it deserved—I never would’ve imagined a book like this would’ve been so funny at the same time. It truly kept me hooked on every word. This is the second of his books I’ve read—I loved So Much Blue a few years ago.
Absolutely genius.
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