The Overstory

In the 1800s, people in Prospect Hill, Brooklyn, throw stones at chestnut trees and gather the nuts that fall. A Norwegian named Jørgen Hoel eats the gathered chestnuts with his friends. That night, Jørgen proposes to Vi Powys, and they become Americans together, moving to Iowa to be farmers. Vi becomes pregnant, and Jørgen plants six of the chestnuts that he gathered on the day he proposed. He nurtures the seedlings.

Their first child dies in infancy. Soon, however, they have many children and “the hint of a chestnut grove” (12), which provides traditional medicines for the family. The farm and the family expand; eventually, there is one tree left, the others killed by lighting and drought. Jørgen’s sons grow up and find work, his daughters go off to marry neighbors. The eldest son, John, helps on the farm, bringing in a steam tractor and other machines. Vi dies and Jørgen falls sick, confined to the bed in the house he built. John buries his father beneath the chestnut tree, part of a slowly expanding cemetery. The tree is so big that it stands out on the flat plains. John invests in technology, including a camera and a telephone. He photographs the chestnut tree once a month.

Blight arrives in America, killing chestnut trees. The blight kills all the trees in New York and spreads west. John Hoel dies on his 56th birthday, and the farm passes to his two sons, Carl and Frank. The latter continues his father’s monthly photograph of the chestnut tree until he is drafted into the First World War, whereupon his son Frank Jr. promises to maintain the tradition. Frank Sr. is killed in France. The blight spreads south, through the Appalachians. Four billion trees are killed or cut down. Frank Jr. grows up and keeps his promise to his father. He is never sure whether he loves or hates the tree, but the tradition gives his life purpose. By the Second World War, there are 500 pictures. The surviving tree becomes famous and attractions attention. In 1965, Frank Jr. replaces his camera. The accumulated photographs document none of the family’s history—the births, deaths, and movements around the world. The farm begins to fail and, as Frank Jr.’s health falters, he tells his son Eric not to continue the tradition.

Nicholas Hoel returns to the farm to visit his grandmother and remembers the time he spent there as a boy. He flicks through the hundreds of photographs of the chestnut tree; though his family seemed embarrassed by the project, he is fascinated. Now an artist, he learned his trade on the farm. After a short stint in juvie as a teen, he went to art school in Chicago. At 25, he works in a department store and hopes his best days lay ahead.

He has returned to the farm for Christmas. It is now little more than a house, the land leased to far-away companies. Nick leaves his family at the farm to visit a gallery in Omaha, driving through a snowstorm. After a car crash, he tries to call home but cannot reach anyone; he sleeps in the car. He finally arrives at the house, guided by the chestnut tree, but no one is around. He finds his family dead, and, in a panic, he trips and falls into the snow. He stares up at the branches of the chestnut tree. 

In 1948, Ma Sih Hsuin is addressed by his father in forced English. Sih Hsuin is being sent to San Francisco with a third-class ticket, where he will be responsible for saving the family from the communist revolution in China. The family are We Hui Moslems and run a successful business in Shanghai named the Ma Trading Company. Sih Hsuin is given three beautiful and symbolic rings and several ancient Buddhist paintings from the family treasury to “keep them out of the hands of the Communists” (33).

Sih Hsuin boards a steamer and crosses the Pacific. The boat is crowded, the food is vile, and the conditions terrible, but he does not care. He is heading to America to study electrical engineering. A customs official interviews him upon arrival and examines his paintings. She is unimpressed. Sih Hsuin Ma’s name is changed to Winston Ma.

Winston marries an American woman named Charlotte and plants a mulberry tree in the bare backyard of their home in Wheaton, Illinois. They have three daughters: Mimi, Carmen, and Amelia. When Mimi is nine, she complains about Mao to her sisters and blames him for stealing their grandfather’s possessions and placing their grandfather in a work camp.

Winston works in telecommunications engineering. As the girls sit beneath the mulberry tree, Mimi begins to climb up to see into her parents’ room. She plucks off a leaf. Amelia cries out, worried that her sister has hurt the tree. Winston has adjusted to American life and is well liked, but he never speaks Chinese. The day before, he had shown Mimi his rings and paintings, kept safe in his study. Climbing down from the tree, Mimi shows her sisters their father’s treasures.

Winston’s favorite part of America is the national parks. He meticulously plans the family’s annual trips. One year, they travel to Yellowstone. The children sit in the back while Charlotte reads the maps, the faintest signs of future dementia beginning to show. Mimi fishes with Winston, the memories of which she will treasure forever. While the family sit around one camping ground, Amelia spots a bear. Winston approaches the animal and—to his family’s surprise—begins to speak to it in Chinese. He distracts the bear long enough for the family to hide in the car. Later, he explains to Mimi that he simply apologized to the bear and explained that people are stupid and will be “leaving this world, very soon” (42).

At college, Mimi explores her bisexuality. One afternoon, whilst reading poetry, she realizes she must become an engineer like Winston. She transfers to Berkeley to study ceramic engineering. Before graduation, she is offered a job as a casting process supervisor for a molding outfit in Portland. The role allows her to travel; she visits Korea and falls in love with the country in four months. Meanwhile, Carmen studies economies at Yale, and Amelia nurses wounded wildlife in Colorado. In Wheaton, Charlotte’s dementia worsens while Winston desperately tries to save the mulberry tree from disease. He takes no pleasure from his work inventing a portable telephone because he cannot save the tree. When Mimi talks to him on the phone, he sounds defeated. That fall, Winston shoots himself in the head beneath the dying tree. He leaves no note except an unfurled poem from his collection of family heirlooms.

Charlotte does not understand Winston’s suicide. It is Mimi’s job to clean up the mess (everything except the body and the gun). Carmen and Amelia arrive; together they reminisce about their father. They divide up his possessions and deal with his estate. They each take one of the jade rings. They decide to get the ancient scroll appraised and donate it to a museum. The police return the gun Winston used to kill himself. Mimi tries to take it to a nearby gun shop, but her bicycle is pulled over by a police patrol. She worries, envisages her jail sentence. But the officer warns her to use hand signals. In the airport, heading home, Mimi thinks about how “the things of this world mean nothing, except for this ring and the priceless ancient scroll in her carry-on” (50). 

Each of the four Appich children has a tree planted in their honor: Leigh (elm), Jean (ash), Emmett (ironwood), and Adam (maple). The five-year-old Adam paints the family, their trees, and everything in the house, handing the finished painting to his mother. She confesses to the neighbors that Adam is “a little socially retarded” (53); unsure what this means, Adam likens it to a superpower. When the family expects a new baby, Adam’s father gathers the children to help decide the baby’s species of tree. Adam becomes emotional, worried that they will make the wrong choice because he believes each child perfectly corresponds to their tree. The fact that there is a sale on black walnut means that their father has rigged the context regardless. By chance, the tree will prove to be an excellent choice for the baby, Charles. When his father tries to plant the tree, Adam frets that the sack around its roots will choke it to death.

Four years later, the children fight over who has the most beautiful tree. Adam organizes a secret vote to find a winner; each child votes for their own tree. A runoff and a ruthless campaign lead to Adam and his maple losing the vote, and he sulks for two months. By age 10, Adam is bullied by his older brother and other kids. Spending more time alone, he becomes fascinated by nature. He collects anything he can; owl pellets, snake skins, and shards of flint. His collection becomes unwieldy and, when his mother disposes of the “moldy, bug-infested junk” (57), he slaps her. Adam’s father is so enraged that he fractures Adam’s wrist. When he recovers, Adam climbs trees and realizes the bounty of non-human life which exists beyond most people’s comprehension. When Leigh’s tree is infected, Adam is the only child who seems to care. He salvages a plank of wood from the tree and carves a poem sloppily into the material as a present for Leigh. After she leaves for college, he finds it in a crate destined for the Salvation Army.

In 1976, Adam becomes obsessed with ants. Using Jean’s nail polish, he dabs blotches of color onto a line of ants and is enthralled by their organization and intelligence. Emmet interrupts Adam’s experiment and makes him eat grass. Adam returns to the ants, testing their ability to adapt and improvise. All summer long, he studies the ants. He enters his findings in the district science fair. The judges are astounded by his work but award him no medal as he does not have a bibliography. They are certain that he stole the idea.

That spring, Leigh disappears while on spring break with her friends. She is never seen again. Adam accepts her fate while her parents are determined that she is still alive; they spend a great deal of money and time in Florida trying to find her. They argue, and Adam’s father breaks his mother’s arm in a pique of rage. The incident makes Adam realize that humanity is deeply ill and will not last long. Jean and the other children hold their own memorial service in the forest. They share memories of Leigh and Adam burns the engraved piece of wood he recovered from her tree.

Abandoning his interest in nature, Adam begins “four dark years” (62) in high school. He has fun with his friends, drinking and going skinny dipping. He grows tall and strong, so much so that his father becomes afraid of him. Adam is baffled by girls but cannot help his attraction to them. Together with a friend, he makes careful maps of the school and other local institutions, planning pranks. His grades begin to suffer and, when Jean leaves for college, there is no one around who can convince him to work hard.

His mother develops a codeine habit and Adam quickly adapts to her diminished homecare routine. Adam begins to make money doing the other kids’ homework. He saves everything he earns, satisfied with his profits, but he is “forced to learn all kinds of interesting things that shouldn’t interest him” (63). While working on a psychology assignment, he becomes fascinated by a series of puzzles in a book named The Ape Inside Us. His obsession takes over, leaving several clients’ homework undone. It turns the previously incomprehensible matter of human behavior into a simple puzzle for him to solve. Adam’s college entry exam results are mixed; despite his astonishingly high analytical skills, he is marred by his grade-point ranking, and no college will consider him. He writes to the author of The Ape Inside Us, explaining how the book changed his life. The author responds, encouraging Adam to apply to the small, alternative school where he teaches. He also includes a note warning Adam not to use the techniques of influence described in the book on the professor ever again. 

Ray Brinkman, an intellectual property lawyer, and Dorothy Cazaly, a stenographer, do not care about trees. They live in downtown St. Paul in 1974 and work at the same firm. Ray eventually asks Dorothy on a date, and she decides that they should both audition for an amateur production of Macbeth. They are both cast, taking the roles of Macduff and Lady Macbeth. While Dorothy is a natural, Ray’s early readings do not go well. But over the coming weeks, he improves. Ray notices a similarity between theatre and the law while Dorothy is fascinated by the way he plays the role of Macduff. When the shows begin, Ray feels something happening to him that is both important and difficult to understand. He is being sworn in “as temporary deputy” (72) to the oaks used as props on the stage.

As Ray and Dorothy lay in bed together after the closing night party, they talk and—in a roundabout fashion—Ray proposes. She realizes that she is the first woman Ray has slept with and worries she is too young to get married. But she agrees.

As per his prediction, Ray pays off his debts and is made partner. He is highly successful as a lawyer. Dorothy stays in her job. Over the course of six years, the couple break up and get back together, all while continuing with their amateur acting. This happens repeatedly, their engagements typically lasting five months before Dorothy gets cold feet again. By the fourth time, she runs away and writes Ray a letter, explaining her fear of becoming “a legal business deal” (74). He writes back, assuring her that marriage will not make her his property. A few days later, she surprises him with tickets to Rome.

In Italy, they get married on a whim. They try to hide it from their friends when they return to St. Paul, but their marriage is quickly uncovered. They live together and, on their first anniversary, Ray writes Dorothy a loving letter in which he explains that he cannot possibly get her a gift that matches what her love has given him. Instead, he proposes they should buy a new plant each year and its growth will represent their love. Dorothy is so overcome by emotion that she crashes her car into a linden tree on the way to work. She goes to the hospital for stiches. Learning that she has been injured, Ray rushes to the hospital and crashes his own car. As he is being wheeled into surgery, Dorothy calls out, agreeing to his plan.