Greenwood - Michael Christie

Written by Michael Christie
Read by Kimberly Farr
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

Publisher: Books on Tape
Release date: February 25, 2020
Duration: 18:48:03

It’s 2038 and Jacinda (Jake) Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world’s last remaining forests.

It’s 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, sprawled on his back after a workplace fall, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion.

It’s 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father’s once vast and violent timber empire.

It’s 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple-syrup camp squat, when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime, secrets, and betrayal that will cling to his family for decades.

And throughout, there are trees: a steady, silent pulse thrumming beneath Christie’s effortless sentences, working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood, and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.

“Narrator Kimberly Farr’s gentle, measured performance is perfect for this family saga, which is replete with secrets and dysfunctional relationships. The story starts in the near future, after climate change has hit its tipping point, and then moves back in time before returning to the beginning. This audiobook is also a commentary on environmental issues and the complex ways that four generations of the Greenwood family depend on trees and forests–as livelihood, solace, and identity–for more than a century. Farr’s personable delivery paints vibrant portraits of the fully realized characters, strengthening listeners’ empathy for their flaws and intentions. At the same time, she allows listeners to form their own opinions about them and the choices they make during times of economic and ecological change.” — AudioFile