When the Last Tree (Earth of America) (French Edition)

2021 Palmarès The 100 books of the year from the magazine Lire

"The time doesn't go in a given direction. It accumulates, that's all - in the body, in the world - like wood. Layer after layer. Clear, then dark. Each resting on the previous one, impossible without the one before. Every triumph, every disaster forever etched into its structure." From the near future to the 1930s, Michael Christie builds, like an architect, the genealogy of a family whose fate is darkened by secrets and intimately linked to that of the forests.

1. The epidemic waves of the Great Withering have decimated all the trees and transformed the planet into a desert of dust. One of the last refuges is a wooded island off the coast of British Columbia, which welcomes wealthy tourists who come to admire the last old-growth forest. Jacinda works there as a guide, with little hope for a better future. Until a friend tells her that she might be descended from Harris Greenwood, a controversial timber tycoon. Thus begins a rich and protean story whose unsuspected ramifications echo the events, tragedies, and upheavals that have shaped our world. What will be left when the last tree has been felled?

A family fresco, a social and ecological novel, this book, as impressive as it is original, makes its author one of the most talented Canadian writers of his generation. Booksellers' prize list 2021 - Livres Hebdo

And if the great American novel of this literary season came from Canada? With breath, numerous twists and turns, memorable characters, the small story within the big one. Everything is there. Page of booksellers

A first novel following in the footsteps of Steinbeck. France Info

A masterful and epic novel. When the last tree is not read. It is devoured. La République du Centre

One word comes to mind at the end of this novel: impressive. Impressive in its complexity, richness, subtlety, plausibility, perspective, mastery, and maturity. Le Hall du Livre Bookstore

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