The Overstory: A Novel

Love is a tree with branches in forever with roots in eternity and a trunk nowhere at all

In myths, people turn into all kinds of things. Birds, animals, trees, flowers, rivers. Why not an American named Winston?

Forever in motion, these stationary things.

There are a hundred thousand species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making

His hand moves and the thought forms: Who needs anything, except food? And those like Mimas who make their own food—freest of all.

This, the most widely distributed tree in North America with close kin on three continents, all at once feels unbearably rare. She

real joy consists of knowing that human wisdom counts less than the shimmer of beeches in a breeze. As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.

This, a voice whispers, from very nearby. This. What we have been given. What we must earn. This will never end.

Trees fall with spectacular crashes. But planting is silent and growth is invisible.

This is what people do—solve their own problems in others’ lives.