The Trees by Percival Everett

This book is shortlisted for the Booker prize, and it is a complex and emotional story. It is a harsh satire, a fast-paced comedy with elements of crime and horro, and it directly addresses racism in a boldly shocking manner. The setting is a small town called Money, Mississippi, “named in that persistent Southern tradition of irony”. We meet a dysfunctional white family unit with its morose matriarch Granny C, her son Wheat Bryant, and her nephew, Junior Junior. This time it’s the white folks’ turn to be rendered in grotesque caricature, and the actions of this feckless clan are played as broad knockabout, almost like a reverse minstrel show. Wheat is found dead and brutally disfigured, with the mutilated corpse of a young Black man next to him, which subsequently goes missing. The same thing happens to Junior Junior, with the same disappearing cadaver, and all at once we’re in a horror story. As with the films of Jordan Peele, the paranormal is used to depict the African American experience in extremis, and here supernatural horror and historical reality collide in dreadful revelation. We are presented with a ghostly yet corporeal presence that haunts America’s consciousness. Money, Mississippi is a real place. It was where the 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in 1955, after being accused by a white woman of making suggestive remarks. We learn that Granny C is that woman, and the corpse is Emmett, returned to take his revenge on her descendants. The story careens along to a satisfying conclusion. Do not miss this one.