The Trees: A Novel

By Percival Everett

Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
Winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Finalist for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone

Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781644451564

Percival Everett

Percival Everett is the author of over thirty books, including So Much Blue, Telephone, Dr No and The Trees, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and won the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. He has received the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. His novel Erasure has now been adapted into the major film American Fiction. He lives in Los Angeles.

Book preview

RISE

1

Money, Mississippi, looks exactly like it sounds. Named in that persistent Southern tradition of irony and with the attendant tradition of nescience, the name becomes slightly sad, a marker of self-conscious ignorance that might as well be embraced because, let’s face it, it isn’t going away.

Just outside Money, there was what might have loosely been considered a suburb, perhaps even called a neighborhood, a not-so-small collection of vinyl-sided, split-level ranch and shotgun houses called, unofficially, Small Change. In one of the dying grass backyards, around the fraying edges of an empty aboveground pool, one adorned with faded mermaids, a small family gathering was happening. The gathering was neither festive nor special, but usual.

It was the home of Wheat Bryant and his wife, Charlene. Wheat was between jobs, was constantly, ever, always between jobs. Charlene was always quick to point out that the word between usually suggested something at either end, two somethings, or destinations, and that Wheat had held only one job in his whole life, so he wasn’t between anything. Charlene worked as a receptionist at the Money Tractor Exchange J. Edgar Price Proprietor (the official business name, no commas), for both sales and service, though the business had not exchanged many tractors of late, or even repaired many. Times were hard in and around the town of Money. Charlene always wore a yellow halter top the same color as her dyed and poofed hair, and she did this because it made Wheat angry. Wheat chain-drank cans of Falstaff beer and chain-smoked Virginia Slims cigarettes, claiming to be one of those feminists because he did, telling his children that the drinks were necessary to keep his big belly properly inflated, and the smokes were important to his bowel regularity.

When outside, Wheat’s mother—Granny Carolyn, or Granny C—wheeled herself around in one of those wide-tired electric buggies from Sam’s Club. It was not simply like the buggies from Sam’s Club; it was, in fact, permanently borrowed from the Sam’s Club down in Greenwood. It was red and had white letters that spelled am’s Clu. The hardworking electric motor emitted a constant, loud whir that made conversation with the old woman more than a bit of a challenge.

Granny C always looked a little sad. And why not? Wheat was her son. Charlene hated the woman nearly as much as she hated Wheat, but never showed it; she was an old woman, and in the South you respect your elders. Her four grandchildren, three years to ten, looked nothing like each other, but couldn’t possibly have belonged anywhere else or to anyone else. They called their father by his first name, and they called their mother Hot Mama Yeller, the CB handle she used when she chatted with truckers late at night after the family was asleep, and occasionally while she cooked.

That CB chatter made Wheat angry, partly because it reminded him of the one job he’d had: driving a semitrailer truck full of fruits and vegetables for the Piggly Wiggly chain of grocery markets. He lost that job when he fell asleep and drove his truck off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Not completely off, as the cab dangled over the Little Tallahatchie River for many hours before he was rescued. He was saved by climbing into the bucket of an excavator brought over from Leflore. He might actually have held on to his job had the truck not held on, had simply and quickly plunged immediately and anticlimactically off the bridge and into the muddy river below. But as it happened, there was ample time for the story to blow up and show up on CNN and Fox and YouTube, repeated every twelve minutes and going viral. The killing image was the clip of some forty empty cans of Falstaff beer spilling from the cab and raining into the current below. Even that might not have been so bad had he not been clutching a can in his fat fist as he climbed through the teeth off the excavator bucket.

Also at the gathering was Granny C’s brother’s youngest boy, Junior Junior. His father, J. W. Milam, was called Junior, and so his son was Junior Junior, never J. Junior, never Junior J., never J. J., but Junior Junior. The older, called Just Junior after the birth of his son, had died of the cancer as Granny C called it some ten years earlier. He passed away within a month of Roy, her husband and Wheat’s daddy. She considered it somehow important that they died of the same thing.

Granny C, ain’t you hot in that ridiculous hat? Charlene shouted at the old woman over the whir of her buggy.

What say?

I mean, that hat ain’t even straw. It’s like a vinyl tarp or something. And it ain’t got no breathing holes in it.

What?

She cain’t hear you, Hot Mama Yeller, her ten-year-old said. She cain’t hear nothing. She’s deaf as a post.

Hell, Lulabelle, I know that. But you cain’t say I didn’t tell her about that hat when she up and keels over from heatstroke. She looked down at Granny C again. And that contraption she rolls around in gets all hot too. That makes you even hotter! she yelled at the woman. How does she keep living? That’s what I want to know.

Leave my mama alone, Wheat said, half-laughing. He might have been half-laughing. Who could tell? His mouth was twisted in a permanent lopsided sneer. Many believed he’d suffered a mild stroke while eating ribs months before.

She’s wearing that ridiculous hot hat again, Charlene said. Gonna make herself sick.

So? She don’t mind. The hell you care, anyway? Wheat said.

Junior Junior screwed the cap back onto his paper bag–wrapped bottle and said, Why the fuck y’all ain’t got no water in this pool?

Damn thing leaks, Wheat said. Got a crack in the wall from where Mavis Dill fell into the side of it with her fat ass. She weren’t even tryin’ to go swimming, just walkin’ by and fell on it.

How did she manage to fall?

She’s just fat, Junior Junior, Charlene said. The load gets leanin’ one way and that’s the way it’s gotta go. Gravity. Wheat can tell you all about that. Ain’t that right, Wheat? You know all about gravity.

Fuck you, Wheat said.

I won’t have that kind of talk around my grands, Granny C said.

And how the hell did she hear that? Charlene said. She cain’t hear screaming, but she can hear that.

I hear plenty, the old woman said. Don’t I hear plenty, Lulabelle?

Y’all sure do, the girl said. She had climbed onto her grandmother’s lap. You can hear just about anything. Cain’t you, Granny C? Y’all is damn near dead, but y’all can hear just fine. Right, Granny C?

Sho ’nuff, baby doll.

So, what you gonna do with this pool? Junior Junior asked.

Why? Wheat asked. You want to buy it? I’ll sell it to you in a heartbeat. Make me an offer.

I can put me some pigs in this thing. Just carve out the bottom and stick them pigs in there.

Take it away, Wheat said.

I could just bring them pigs here. That would be easier, don’t you think?

Wheat shook his head. But then we’d be smelling your hogs. I don’t want to be smelling your hogs.

But you got it all set up and staked out so nice-like. Gonna be a lot of work to move it. Junior Junior lit a skinny green cigar. You can keep one of them hogs for yourself. How about that?

I don’t need no fucking hog, Wheat said.

Language! Granny C shouted.

If I want bacon, I go to the store, Wheat said.

And buy it with my money, Charlene said. Bring them pigs on over, Junior Junior, but I want to keep two of ’em, big ones, and you butcher ’em.

Deal.

Wheat didn’t say anything. He walked across the yard and helped the four-year-old climb into her pink plastic car.

Granny C stared off into space. Charlene studied her for a minute. Granny C, you okay?

The old woman didn’t reply.

Granny C?

What’s wrong with her? Junior Junior asked, leaning in. She havin’ a stroke or something?

Granny C startled them. "No, you rednecked talking turnip, I ain’t havin’ no stroke. I swear, a person cain’t reflect on her life around here without some fool accusing her of havin’ a stroke. Are you havin’ a stroke? You the one show symptoms."

How come you jumpin’ on me? Junior Junior asked. Charlene was staring at you first.

Never mind him, Charlene said. What was you thinking on, Granny C?

Granny C stared off again. About something I wished I hadn’t done. About the lie I told all them years back on that nigger boy.

Oh Lawd, Charlene said. We on that again.

I wronged that little pickaninny. Like it say in the good book, what goes around comes around.

What good book is that? Charlene asked. "Guns and Ammo?"

No, the Bible, you heathen.

The yard became quiet. The old woman went on. I didn’t say he said something to me, but Bob and J. W., they insisted he did, and so I went along with it. I wish to Jesus I hadn’t. J. W. hated him some niggers.

Well, it’s all done and past history now, Granny C. So you just relax. Ain’t nothing can change what happened. You cain’t bring the boy back.

2

Deputy Sheriff Delroy Digby was driving his twelve-year-old Crown Victoria squad car across the Tallahatchie Bridge when he received a call to go to Small Change. He pulled into the front yard of Junior Junior Milam and saw the man’s wife, Daisy, pacing and crying, gesticulating wildly. Delroy had dated Daisy briefly in high school, and it had stopped when she actually bit his tongue. Then he went into the army and became a clerk in the quartermaster’s corp. He returned home to Mississippi to find Daisy married to Junior Junior and pregnant with her fourth child. That child was on her hip as she paced now, and the other three were sitting like zombies on the first step of the porch.

What’s goin’ on, Daisy? Delroy asked.

Daisy stopped waving her arms and stared at him. Her face was crunched from crying, her eyes red and sunken.

What is it? What happened, Daisy? he asked.

The room all the way in the back, she said. It’s Junior Junior. Oh Lawd, I think he’s dead, she whispered so the children couldn’t hear. He got to be dead. We all just got back from the big swap meet in the Sam’s Club parking lot. The babies ain’t seen nothing. Lawd, it’s just awful.

Okay, Daisy. You stay here.

There’s something else back there too, she said.

Delroy put his hand on his pistol. What?

Somebody. He’s dead too. Must be dead. Oh, he’s dead. Gotta be dead. You’ll see.

Delroy was confused and now more than a little scared. All he ever did in the service was count rolls of toilet paper. He went back to his patrol car and grabbed the radio. Hattie, this here is Delroy. I’m out at Junior Junior Milam’s place and I think I’m gonna need me some backup.

Brady’s not far from there. I’ll send him over.

Thank you, Hattie, ma’am. Tell him I’ll be in the back of the house. Delroy put down the handset and returned to Daisy. I’m gonna take me a little look-see. You send Brady back there when he arrives.

The room is just off the kitchen, she said. Delroy. She put her hand gently on his arm. You know, I always liked you when we was in high school. I didn’t mean to bite your tongue, and I’m awfully sorry about that. Fast Phyllis Tucker told me all the boys liked that and so I did it. You didn’t like it. I guess I did it too hard.

Okay, Daisy. He started away and then turned back to the woman. Daisy, you didn’t kill him, did you?

Delroy, I’m the one who called the police.

Delroy stared at her.

No, I did not kill him. Either one of them.

Delroy didn’t draw his weapon as he entered the house, but he kept his hand heavy on it. He walked slowly through the front room. It was dark because the windows were so remarkably small. There was a line of small bowling trophies on the mantel. The fire-place was filled with stacks of brightly colored plastic bowls, plates, and cups. The house was so still and quiet he got more frightened and pulled his pistol. What if the killer was still there? Should he go back outside and wait for Brady? If he did that, Daisy might think he was a coward. Brady would certainly laugh at him and call him a yellow chicken. So, he kept moving forward. He gave each bedroom a cursory look, then stood in the kitchen for a long while before pushing on into the back room. His boots made a lot of noise on the buckled linoleum.

He stopped in his tracks once inside the room. He couldn’t move. He had never seen two people so dead in his entire life. And he’d been in a goddamn war. Who or what he took to be Junior Junior had a bloody, bashed-in skull. He could see part of his brain. A long length of rusty barbed wire was wrapped several times around his neck. One of his eyes had been either gouged out or carved out and lay next to his thigh, looking up at him. There was blood everywhere. One of his arms was twisted at an impossible angle behind his back. His pants were undone and pulled down to below his knees. His groin was covered with matted blood, and it looked like his scrotum was missing. Some ten feet from Junior Junior was the body of a small Black man. His face was horribly beaten, his head swollen, his neck scarred and seemingly stitched together. He was not bleeding, it seemed, but there was no doubt that he was dead. The Black man wore a dark blue suit. Delroy looked again at Junior Junior. The man’s exposed legs looked strangely alive.

Delroy jumped a little when Brady appeared behind him.

Good Lord Almighty! Brady said. Goddamn! Is that Junior Junior?

I think so, Delroy said.

Any idea who the nigger is?

None.

What a mess, Brady said. Lord, Lordy, Lord, Lord, Jesus. Looky at that. His balls ain’t on him!

I see that.

I think they’re in the nigger’s hand, Brady said.

You’re right. Delroy leaned in for a closer look.

Don’t touch nothing. Don’t touch a gawddamn thing. We got ourselves some kind of crime here. Lordy.

3

Goddamnit, I hate murder more than just about anything, said Sheriff Red Jetty. It can just ruin a day.

Because it’s such a waste of life? the coroner, Reverend Cad Fondle, asked. He had just pronounced Junior Junior and the unidentified Black man dead without so much as touching them.

No, it’s because it’s a mess.

It is a lot of blood, Fondle said.

I don’t give a shit about the blood. It’s the goddamn paperwork. Jetty pointed at the floor. What you gonna do about Milam’s balls there?

Tell your boys to bag ’em. Can’t see there’s much point in sewin’ them back on him. But the mortician can decide that with the family.

Sheriff Jetty squatted, being careful not to land on a knee, and studied the Black corpse, tilted his head.

What you seein’, Red? Fondle asked.

Don’t he look familiar?

I can’t tell what he looks like. That’s a lot of damage. Besides, they all look alike to me.

You think Junior Junior did that to him?

Fondle shook his head. None of it looks fresh.

Well, let’s get ’em in the wagon and take them to the morgue. Jetty looked back into the kitchen. Delroy! Get the bags.

You want we should dust for prints? Delroy asked. We ain’t touched nothing. In this room, anyway.

Why bother? Oh sure, why the hell not. You and Brady do that. Then help clean up all this blood.

That ain’t in my job description, Brady

Reviews for The Trees

[Roger Day · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Everett is a powerful writer, his mastery of irony and sarcasm excels in this as in other books.

I appreciated the extensive list of victims of lynching.
The inclusion of chinese victims from earlier days is admirable.
I keep a listing of locales of mass killings of black people.
The list in is book more than doubled my list. So important not to forget.

An apparent absence of Jewish victims is puzzling.
The book was written several years after the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh.
11 murdered. Not listed here.
And though James Chaney on Everett's list, not Goodman and Schwermer, who were just a murdered, at the same time, for the same cause.
Jews who risked and lost their lives on behalf of Black suffrage.

And, though the appeal of revenge fantasy is powerful, from what I've seen in life violence rebounds not once but many times. Not a fan of violence.

So my review is 4 not 5 stars.



Why

[Carla Bates · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Righteous, violent, hilarious - a great read. And to think I happened to read it this weekend, on the death of Carolyn Bryant!

[ericlee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The Trees, Percival Everett, author; Bill Andrew Quinn, narratorBeginning with bizarre murders occurring in a town called Money, Mississippi, and extending to its suburb called Spare Change, the author seemed to be highlighting the evils of racism and economic inequality, and seemed to be exposing the need to find a peaceful resolution for the problems caused by our past sins. His approach was tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic. The citizens highlighted in the novel seemed backward and uneducated, poor, and very unworthy of respect, which they are, unsurprisingly, not given in the narrative. The only honorable community seemed to be the one “of color”, the one that had quietly suffered, that was now quietly planning the murders that ironically “take on a life of their own”, and grow into a “revolution” of sorts, promoting a ”pandemic of death” throughout the country. As the story became more and more violent, with very graphic details and descriptions of cold-blooded murders and mutilations, it also became less credible, less palatable, and more narrow in its scope for me. Instead of exposing injustice in an effort to seek justice, it seemed rather to justify racial violence against the white population, in order to extract vengeance. The community was not looking for a solution but for retribution. I felt the author’s message was becoming dangerous as dead white bodies were piling up without explanation. In addition, there was always a person of color holding the detached genitals of the dead white victims. This person was also dead, and was always present at the crime scene. It soon became frightfully obvious that the murders were being committed by “zombies”, the resurrected bodies of those who had been unfairly lynched. As the number of deaths began to reach epic proportions, and the atmosphere became more and more gleeful and accepting of the increasing violence, with these growing numbers of zombies claiming the lives of the relatives of those who were raised by racists and those who still harbored racist feelings and behaviors, it grew into a maelstrom of violence. Ultimately, the white racists continued to be murdered, maimed and disfigured horribly, murdered by black men, Asian men, and others who had been unjustly lynched, with no end in sight. The numbers of the guilty were grossly exaggerated as they reached far into the future to punish those never directly involved, but who seemed guilty due to their pale skin color. As the scholar, Assistant Professor Damon Thruff, worked diligently typing out the names of the victims, spurred on by Mama Z, they continued to rise up and their numbers increased. Murder after murder was committed until the violence spread all over the country and copycats created panic. The death toll multiplied. There was no clarification forthcoming from those in charge as they could not stop the killing.The author seemed intent on encouraging retribution and revenge, negating any positive feelings of hopefulness as a result of reading this book. Incongruously, this murderous plan originated and was led by a woman who claimed to be 105 years-old. Perhaps that is what most identifies the absurdity of this novel. The need to hate and seek payback lived on and on. Those who want to continue to hate will love this book, those who want to resolve issues and move on, will not. Liberals who are angry with the former President who is not named, but who is roundly mocked and identified with a gross exaggeration of his behavior through the horrifying use of misleading and false statements supposedly made by him, will love this book, too. They have already promoted many lies, lies that they still continue to support, like those about Russian collusion which is alluded to in this book. As the word “rise” is repeated over and over to emphasize the need for the dead to rise up and exact vengeance, one has to wonder about the author’s true purpose in writing this book, since in the narrative, he trashes a former President, murders a Governor of Florida, and a former Speaker of the House, without identifying anyone by name, except for the use of the name Melania, very disrespectfully. Perhaps his motives are not as pure as the driven snow. At first, I was actually impressed with the author’s ability to marry a story about racism with humor, as well as with the appropriate gravity it deserved. As I continued, however, I began to doubt my original assessment and was sorry I had recommended it to a friend. The author’s politics are revealed, with a fury, as the barrage of falsehoods are sarcastically presented, and as unnamed Republicans, who are definitely identifiable, are slandered. Everett even ridiculed G-d, along with all those that oppose the views he presented. He seemed to be instigating the rightful use of violence, as he promoted his message which turned into propaganda. I found the overuse of sarcasm, curse words and the “N” word, uncomfortable. Anyone judged to have had any connection to a racist history, whether or not they were actually involved, seemed to be fair game. Anyone white had a target on their back because presumably they had put the target on the backs of the victims they lynched. This is a book that is perhaps, unintentionally or intentionally, only the author knows that for sure, promoting conflict, and possibly, even a Civil War.

[banjo123 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read about this one from the Tournament of Books, and thought I'd try it because it was well rated, and a strange premise. Turns out the premise was a bit too strange for me. It takes place in Money, Mississippi; in present day. There are a serious of gory murders of white people, with supernatural overtones. It's revenge for the Emmett Till murder by lynching. A pair of African American detectives are sent to investigate the crimes.The weird thing about this book, is it's also comic. The local white people are comically stereotypical "rednecks." Example: One is named Junior Junior, with a son named Junior Junior Junior. The point, I think, is that instead of the Black characters being stereotyped, it's the white characters who are, and the black characters are nuanced. So if you like the idea, please read the book, but it was a bit too slapstick for me.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A combination of American history, detective noir, and horror, this book proposes a powerful "what if?' At times it is funny, and some of the characters are interesting, but the theme drives the novel.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

And with that, I have completed the 18-title ToB shortlist! The Trees is set in Money, Mississippi. Carolyn Bryant—the woman who accused Emmett Till—is an elderly woman in this novel, surrounded by descendants. But this novel is not about her. This novel is about race relations and karma. It’s about years, decades, centuries of pain. It touches on what “race” really even is/isn’t.The main characters are Ed and Jim, Black detectives of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. They are sent to Money to investigate a series of grisly murders and the body that appears at every murder scene before disappearing again. And there is Gertrude, local waitress, who introduces them to local people and places. As similar crimes occur around the country, an FBI agent joins the investigation.No spoilers, but the most amazing thing about this book is that it is funny. This very serious book is also hysterically funny. I would never have expected this to be true, but Everett did it. His satire game is very strong. The unnamed Trump character’s speech is so believable that it’s funny and infuriating at the same time—and so goes the book.I was wondering how Everett could possibly explain the happenings and wrap this up—but he managed in a way I found completely satisfying.

[opinionated_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As always, Percival Everett contrives to have the reader doubled up with laughter whilst punching them heavily in the solar plexus. A riotous menagerie of characters, but deadly serious content. In Money, Mississippi, and its satellite town, Small Change, murders are occurring, and the white murderees are relatives of those responsible for the lynching of Emmett Till. Each murder is accompanied by the corpse of a long dead Black man. A corpse that keeps disappearing .. To say more would be to spoil it; this isn't a long book. Read, enjoy and ponder truths about the history of lynching

[narshkite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anger is an energy-John Lydon - RiseAnd I'll rise up, I'll rise like the dayI'll rise up, I'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll do it a thousand times againAnd I'll rise up, high like the wavesI'll rise up in spite of the acheI'll rise upAnd I'll do it a thousand times again-Andra Day - Rise UpAlabama's gotten me so upsetTennessee made me lose my restAnd everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam- Nina Simone - Mississippi GoddamSouthern trees bear a strange fruitBlood on the leaves and blood at the rootBlack bodies swingin' in the Southern breezeStrange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees-Milt Raskin - Strange FruitA few years back a couple of friends, just days apart, suggested to me that I read Percival Everett's A Touch of Blue." I meant to, I really did, but my TBR rivals K2 and I just never got there. Last year I read a great review of Telephone in the NYT, and I meant to read it, and (repeat the first verse). Then recently my GR friend Robin gave a rhapsodic review to Everett's I Am not Sidney Poitier and I decided I needed to turn intention into action. Alas, with all those good reviews of three specific books, I opted to start with Everett's most recent book, The Trees. I am now mad at myself for not picking up Everett's earlier books.The Trees is a look at racism in America built on the history of lynching and using the conventions of southern satire, police procedural, and horror. Sounds a little crazy, I know, but it works perfectly. The book is smart, and affecting, and radical in its way. One of the characters in the book is a brilliant academic who writes about racism, one of the other characters notes the dispassion in his work, and he says something like the dispassionate recitation of facts is there to provide the information and the reader supplies the outrage. I agree with that, but sometimes that only works in theory. Everett is clearly a restrained writer, the kind of writer I like, who lets me feel my way about things, but here he shows his cards. This is the least dispassionate book I can imagine. It is stark, it is violent, and Everett does not shrink from inserting himself and telling you that the more things change the more they stay the same, telling you that you should be outraged. And he is right, you should.I don't want to make this seem grim though. It is also a wryly funny revenge fantasy peopled by absurdly named side characters (my favorite is Helvetica Quip, or maybe Herbie Hind, or maybe Junior Junior and his son Triple J) and our blandly named main characters, Jim and Ed. The heart of the action is in Money, Mississippi infamous for being the place Emmett Till was lynched. I am sure everyone knows that the white woman who claimed Emmett Till whistled at her sort of recanted her story when she was an old woman. I mean, I guess the recantation made identifiable one more slab of evil in human form, but even if she had been telling the truth the crime/lynching would not have been any less horrible. When it appears Emmett Till's ghost has risen to exact revenge against the families of the men who lynched him and the woman who lied, the MBI and later the FBI are called in. Then when other ghosts appear to rise all over the country, Black and Chinese and Native American, apparently also exacting revenge, things really heat up. Alongside the colorful descriptions of the modern revenge killings, apparently perpetrated by ghosts or reanimated corpses, are lists of the men and women lynched in America, and those lists are followed by the names of all the places where racial hatred cost people their lives. Horrible lists. Scarier than any ghost.Seven years ago I took my son to Selma and Montgomery to walk the streets people trod on, miles and miles, back and forth to work during the bus boycott. We visited the churches which were so integral to the civil rights movement. I raised my son in Atlanta, he attended elementary school in the Old 4th Ward. Our temple's sister congregation was Ebenezer Baptist, and our own congregation's building was bombed by the Klan. My kid had spent his fair share of time walking historically important streets and sitting in historically important houses of worship so the Freedom Trail vacation might have seemed like a bit too much, but I wanted most of all to take him to the Montgomery Lynching Memorial. Designed by Maya Lin (who designed the Vietnam Memorial on the Mall in Washington among many other things, and this year had a really wonderful climate change installation in Madison Park here in NYC with an exhibit on its development at just down the road at Fotografiska.) it lists the names of every person known to have died by lynching, while acknowledging there were many more never recorded. We spent 4 hours reading every name, and where any other information was available reading that. We both walked in with a commitment to social justice and a history of working for change but still the memorial was life-changing for us both because there was nothing historical about it, those names were there in the moment, and they were real people not abstractions. This book, with its lists, has the same effect. It is stunning. What this man does with words -- the wordplay is next level, but at the same time the language is pretty spare and gritty. The way Everett puts all that spare language together makes it sing, ugly sing, the way the blues are described by Ed and Jim on their visit to Beale St. I don't usually post my kindle highlights here, but for this book I will. Check out these fragments if you are interested. It will tell you a lot about the book.One note: members of Trumpster Fire Nation are going to hate this, but they would have anyway even if the attack was less frontal.

[kayanelson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

2022 TOB— Wow, I loved this book. It was extremely clever and the plot kept taking twists and turns. It covered quite a bit of ground and a lot of characters. But underneath it all was one main message—is it okay to get even when you, collectively as a race, have been wronged?This book is sheer genius.

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Strange things are happening in Money, Mississippi. Two descendants of the men who lynched Emmett Till have been brutally murdered and mutilated. And each time a dead black man was found at the scene. The same dead black man. And it doesn’t take long before someone notices that he looks rather a lot like Emmett Till. What in the world is going on?In blistering fashion, Percival Everett takes on the history of lynching in America. It is gruesome, both the history and his archly comic response. But since there is a mystery at hand, it needs investigating. Everett takes us along with his two black Special Detectives and later a black, female, FBI agent as they try to piece together what has happened. However, the problem is that things are about to get completely out of hand. What started out as a crime is blossoming into a full-blown metaphysical application of justice.The best of this novel is the first half (apart from Everett’s trademark gags that continue to appear even in the latter half). At some point, however, the story seems to almost get away from its author. And once metaphysical justice gets out of the box, there seems to be no way to rein it in. You will laugh at times at Everett’s almost juvenile puns and plays on words. At other times you will be utterly appalled, the latter due to the actual history of race in America. And there’s just no way that is going to end well even in a comic novel.Recommended.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Goodness, I don't know how to describe this book or if I should even try. More impactful I think the less known going in the better. What the author has accomplished here is amazing. I've never read anything like it. An author that can take racism and horrific crimes, making this impactful but also using a great deal of tongue in cheek humor and ending by turning into a horror story. Let's just say it makes a very strong point. I'll also add that as is often said, revenge is a dish best served cold or as a detective in the story states, "The shit has hit the fan."

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book by Percival Everett I've read this year, and it's another good one.We are in a small Mississippi town, and there is a series of brutal murders, each involving a least one white victim and one black victim. It is not clear who murdered whom, although in each case the white victim has been genitally mutilated. The strange thing is, though, that in each case, the body of the black victim disappears shortly afterwards.I can't say more about the plot, but this is a brilliant exploration of racial violence and our country's brutal history of racially motivated murder, including the rash of murders by police. It is unlike anything else I have read this year. When I first started reading, it reminded me of something by Carl Hiassen or Dave Barry with characters with names like Hot Mama Yeller, Hattie Berg, Pick L. Dill, Governor Pinch Wheyface, Officers Ho, Chi, and Minh, and so on and so on. As the seriousness of the themes became apparent, I began to wonder if the humor was appropriate, but in the end all worked.Recommended4 stars

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel begins with an apparent double murder in Money, Mississippi. Then one of the bodies disappears from the morgue. When another man is found murdered, and the missing corpse is with the body, things get weird. And then two special detectives for the MBI (Mississippi Bureau of Investigation) show up to solve the crime and find the (again) missing corpse.This is a novel that defies easy description. It's a novel about lynching that is also really funny? A humorous novel about racism? Whatever it is, it's best book I've read this year.