Percival Everett is one of the best authors you have yet to discover. The Tree's being nominated for the 2022 Booker prize will hopefully bring his work to a wider audience. He is one of a handful of authors that I am always keen to reccommend to people, because no other author can depict the absolute worst of humanity and manage to make it so side-splittingly hilarious. The Tree's is a novel that operates on several levels. It is a hard boiled buddy cop/ detective story set in Mississippi about two Black FBI agents investigating the revenge killings of white people linked to historic lynchings. It is a book about Black trauma that imagines an uprising against America's legacy of lynching and murdering Black and Chinese people. It is a political novel that asks the reader to think of how these lynchings through history are tantamount to genocide. It is also a 'fasten your seatbelts' comic novel about the absolute absurdity of people and everyday situations and Everett really doesn't pull his punches when it comes to eviscerating small town mentality. There is an amazing chapter towards the end of the novel that is A Donald Trump stream of consciousness and it is painfully funny and beautiful in it's execution. All of Everett's novels have characters with strikingly funny names (Pete Built, Helvetica Quip, Hot Mama Yeller) and I love this small flourish that characterises his work. The Tree's is beyond satire, it is impossible to distill the pure quality of Everett's sense of humour, other than to say it always hits like a juggernaut.This is top tier writing from an absolute genuis.

This is a terrific book. It’s a serious topic but very funny and immensely gripping. It starts with a series of brutal murders in a rural town in Mississippi. A pair of hilarious black detectives are drafted in to sort things out. They have to deal with the thick, racist locals, many of whom are members of the KKK, which they do with wit and aplomb. At each crime scene there is a second dead body which resembles the battered corpse of Emmet Till, a young black boy who was lynched in the same town sixty-five years previously. There is a magnificent speech by Trump near the end which is side splittingly authentic. I am off to buy more books by this man.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book as I have never read any of Percival Everett's previous books, and I only bought it after hearing a recommendation on a podcast. But, wow, I couldn't stop reading it. The pace is phenomenal, it's horrific in places but outrageously funny at the same time, and I can see this being made into a very successful film. As someone from the UK, I wasn't sure that this divided culture still existed in Mississippi, but according to some of my American friends it is actually a lot worse. I did struggle with the ending a little, but it's one of the few books that I keep recommending to friends to read, and one that I'll likely read again in the future.

This is a book about a series of murders that occur in the Southern town of Money, Mississippi, USA. At each crime scene, an additional body keeps appearing, disappearing and then reappearing again at the next murder scene. This sets the scene for a supernatural murder-mystery the likes of which the town of Money, Mississippi is not ready for nor has it ever seen before. The story itself is firmly rooted in the history of lynching in the region. Percival Everett masterfully draws attention to the importance of this history whilst also maintaining an outstanding sense of humour throughout. This book is the definition of a page-turner. If you've not heard of Percival Everett before, then The Trees will make sure you never forget him.

A devious concoction of humour and tragedy, The Trees uses its flippancy to highlight the absurdity of racist thought and racist deed, and of a country steeped in racist brutality. Percival Everett spoofs/homages the crime genre, creating this skewed story where people are murdered and families shrug shoulders. It's all very Vonnegut-like, coated in layers of irreverence. This is the kind of book that only works if you're a master of your craft, as Everett is. And if you have a deep sympathy and understanding of your subject matter, as Everett does. There's a particular section of the book when American lynching victims are named - real people, real names- and it's a horrifying punch in the gut. It's a welcome addition of reality, of the profound understanding that each name is real, concrete, lived, lost, and too sadly forgotten. This is a unique book. A fascinating book. A funny book. A brutal book. A horrifying book. A sad book. It's a joke about America and America as a joke. It's a masterpiece.