What if a family tree isn’t a tree at all? What if it’s more like a forest?

When it came out, I thought Greenwood was a mystery/thriller novel (and therefore something I wasn’t interested in reading). I said as much on somebody’s post… a comment later liked by Michael.

Instead, Greenwood is a multi-generational novel about the Greenwood family, starting with Jacinda (Jake), a biologist who is working as an underpaid tour guide at an exclusive forest retreat in 2038 where no forests exist. And following her family tree back as far as 1908, when her great-grandfather and his brother began their careers in logging. Through it all are trees and the way we have used and abused their resources -- for beauty, art, and evil. 

After my initial, wild misunderstanding of the plot was corrected, I was excited to see Greenwood on the Canada Reads shortlist, and so were a lot of other readers. It did not disappoint. The opening page shows a cross-section of a tree, rings labeled 2038, 2008, 1974, 1934, and 1908, with an arrow cut through them to represent a map that show the reader the shape of the story. It's not that the plot jumps around, but takes us into the past, and then back out towards the future. In this way, the characters and motivations are established as the reader goes backwards, and then as we go back forwards, we see how the influence of the past shaped the next generations’ future. It was completely engrossing and very well done.

Regardless of how this book places in Canada Reads, you should read it. It is one of the best multi-generational family sagas I’ve read, and the level of detail in the story is impressive. However, I am curious to see the direction the debater Keegan Connor Tracy goes to argue how this book shifts perspectives. Of the three I’ve read so far, Greenwood is one of the best books but, to me, not the most obvious at showing a new perspective. But we will see how the debates go!