It’s rare for a single novel to combine stunning prose style, emotionally engrossing storylines, undeniable moral gravity, and several college semesters’ worth of esoteric information. When such a book comes along, it deserves to be celebrated. And in the case of Richard Powers’ The Overstory (W.W. Norton. $18.95. www.richardpowers.com), it has been. This decades-sweeping work of compassion for humanity and for the natural world that we both depend upon and destroy, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and was named a best book of the year in publications including The Washington Post, Oprah Magazine and Time. LGBTQ folks will have their minds opened further by Powers’ compelling argument that we must appreciate and honor diversity, not just among people, but all living creatures. In early chapters that could stand alone as brilliant short stories, we meet the novel’s nine central characters, including an Airforce veteran suffering with PTSD, an Asian-American engineer- turned-therapist, a paraplegic Indian American computer genius evocative of Stephen Hawking, and a brilliant botanist with a theory that plants communicate with each other. Each of these people has an early-life encounter with a tree that makes a profound imprint on their souls. In a plot that feels organic rather than coincidental, these disparate individuals end up joining forces as eco-warriors. Together, they take a stand against both the lumber industry and the Humans First sense of privilege that drives squandering of natural resources. While the book is punctuated with heartbreak and tragedy, Powers manages to end things with a glint of hope. His characters blossom with new levels of human empathy as they discover their deep-rooted connections with nature.
