The Overstory

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2019

A monumental novel about reimagining our place in the living world, by one of our most "prodigiously talented" novelists (New York Times Book Review).

The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fable that range from antebellum New York to the late 20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

An air force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits 100 years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another.

These and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by trees, are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. There is a world alongside ours - vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

©2018 Richard Powers (P)2018 Recorded Books

Too long! I do not recommend.

This could have been a profound book if half of the book had been removed. The utter length made my listening a slough instead of a meaningful journey. Especially, during the first half, as soon as I was beginning to enjoy a particular character, boom—it was over & we were on to the next character. That grew tiring.

With some books, I am loathe to saying goodbye. With this book, I was relieved. And that’s too bad because the author did have some important things to say. But they got lost in the forest.

The ending gave little hope. I do not recommend this book. If it were revised & made more compact, that would be a different case.

Incredible Story - Offensive/Insensitve Narration

First - this is a BEAUTIFUL novel and it deserves to be read or listened to - that said, be warned about this performance. I read some negative reviews of Suzanne Toren's narration, and I thought I was prepared. I was wrong. I was not sure which was worse, her Asian voice (it's really really bad), her Indian voice, her gruff man voice, her high pitch lady voice - then I got to the horrifically offensive "deaf voice" she gives to the brilliant female scientist who, the text says, had hearing loss as a child but then WORKED THROUGH HER SPEECH DEFECT and whose portrayal, inexplicably, reminds you of a very very bad community theater version of The Miracle Worker . Sadly, listening to this book means you have to suffer through a shockingly insensitive vocal "performance" portrayal of almost every character. I honestly can't believe the publisher allowed this recording.

Brilliant writing.......glad it's over

Just too highfalutin for me. Beautiful prose...the kind of writing you enjoy sitting in comfortable chair with a hard cover book. I listen to audible whenever I'm not doing something that requires focus/attention, like driving, waiting in lines, gardening, etc. For me this was definitely not an audible book - too esoteric, much symbolism/allegory, etc., I really had to pay attention. It was kinda like listening to T.S. Eliot while cleaning the bathroom. Some day I'd like to pick it up in hardcover and indulge myself.

Abridge me!

There is an important and powerful 12-hour story in this book... Unfortunately there are another 11 hours of florid ramblings which really need to be pruned. This is a book which would benefit greatly from abridgment.

EPIC vantage point

Gratitude for the author who brought this tale into being. The perspective that I yearned for throughout this story was the Indigenous one, from the peoples in all the areas the trees have thrived. It was there in flashes, they were there as guides and powerful memories, but they are still there and here. It's the author's call of course, but the feeling all throughout this book is that the story is influenced by a collection of knowledge. If this story included the generational knowing of the people of these areas, that too would have added to the guiding light, providing tangible hope throughout the story. It would have changed it immensely, but it would bring critical balance to it. Still highly recommended.