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A Novel
An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone.
Percival Everett's The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.
The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can't look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America's pulse.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/28/2026)
FINISHED: Suder is Percival Everett's debut novel and it explores freedom, identity, and madness through the life of a baseball player named Craig Suder. When Suder goes into a slump his coach puts him on injured reserve and urges him to get it together. Suder grabs a phonograph, a record, and a ...
-Anne_Glasgow
BookBrowsers ask Donna Everhart, author of Women of a Promiscuous Nature
I know what you mean about an audiobook's narrator having a huge influence on readers' perception. I finished Percival Everett's The Trees not that long ago and thought the narration was particularly poor. It really impacted my appreciation for the book. You mention knowing other authors whose wo...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/16/2026)
...might have to be it. In audiobook format, I'm listening to https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/20699/the-trees The Trees by Percival Everett. It's soooo good. I wish I was reading it instead of listening, though, as it's one I'd like to savor, and the audio is going by too quickly to grasp...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/09/2026)
Haha, @Lynne_G , that's too funny. I've run into such things myself, and I find it a little irritating when two authors choose the same title. Case in point: My Friends, used by both Hisham Matar and Fredrik Backman. So far, I'm really enjoying The Trees (the one by Percival Everett) though!
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/31/2025)
THE TREES by Percival Everett. I've laughed aloud and been horrified, also. His writing intrigues me…history woven throughout. strong text
-Dotti_A
What books have you enjoyed so far in 2025, what books are you looking forward to reading?
I absolutely loved Orbital, by Samantha Harvey. Need to be in the mood for a quiet, immersive read, but so worth it. I think I may read it again before the year is out. I'm on a Percival Everett kick right now. The Trees was a twisted bit of business that kept my attention all along the way. I am...
-Peggy_A
What are you reading this week? (6/26/025)
I just finished Within Arm's Reach, by Ann Napolitano. Just finished listening to What Now? A short piece by Ann Patchett. Switching gears completely, I am listening to Taste, by Stanley Tucci, and reading James, by Percival Everett. I have enjoyed all of these, in different ways. (James, by the ...
-Peggy_A
What are you reading this week? (5/1/2025)
I'm just this minute starting https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/18643/lies-and-weddings Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan. And then I'm going to launch straight into https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4796/james James without reviewing ...
-Ann_Beman
Anisfield Wolf Awards...Colored Television wins
Thanks Everyone for being open. I think because the award is in Cleveland (instead of very large markets like NY or LA) it remains unknown, but it is amazing. For example, Percival Everett, who is everywhere now, received it for Trees, written before Erasure and James. They truly highlight those ...
-Dee_Driscole
What book or books are you reading this week? (01/16/2025)
Currently reading The Trees by Percival Everett and In the Middle are the Horsemen by Tik Maynard.
-Mary_H
The Top 20 Best Books of the Year as Voted by BookBrowsers
I want to acknowledge The Lion Women of Tehran since it hasn't been mentioned yet and it was one of my favorites. I have been meaning to read Percival Everett books for some time and both The Trees and I Am Not Sidney Poitier have been recommended to me as backlist selections. It doesn't take any...
-Diane_Jones
"This fierce satire is both deeply troubling and rewarding." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Everett has mastered the movement between unspeakable terror and knockout comedy." ―The New York Times Book Review
"[The Trees] blends Everett's wit with elegy and solemnity." ―The Boston Globe
"In The Trees, Everett's enormous talent for wordplay―the kind that provokes laughter and the kind that gut-punches―is at its peak... . He makes a revenge fantasy into a comic horror masterpiece. He turns narrative stakes into moral stakes and raises them sky-high. Readers will laugh until it hurts." ―Los Angeles Times
This information about The Trees was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Michael Avedon
Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.
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