Review: The Trees, by Percival Everett

This book, shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, is very hard to categorise. It begins as a kind of police procedural, though one that is at times laugh-out-loud funny. It has elements of horror. And hints throughout about the supernatural. Above all, it is book about racism in America, and specifically about the country’s long, shameful history of lynchings. Does all that work in a single book? The short answer is — sometimes. There are moments (without giving much away, these are sometimes lists of names) which are extraordinarily powerful. But I’m not sure that the whole book works together, and I was not satisfied with the ending (though the author clearly had no intention of satisfying me). Recommended.