The Family Tree
Sheri S. Tepper
Avon Books, 1999
ISBN:0-380-79197-8 (paperback)
Dora Henry is an ordinary woman living in an extraordinary time. Recently seperated from an
odd and distant husband, Dora looks back wistfully to when she was a little girl, to the times
when the world was a simpler, greener place. But the once-fertile Earth of Dora's childhood has
been overdeveloped. Now Nature, apparently, has decided to fight back.
A a police officer, Dora must investigate the bizarre, seemingly unrelated murders of three
geneicists. In the course of her inquiry, however, it becomes clear that the sc ientists were killed
by the same person, for reasons that are frustatingly obscure. Meanwhile, strange things are
happening everywhere Dora turns; weeds are becoming trees, trees becoming forests, a city is
transformed almost overnight into a wild and verdant place inhospitable to what humankind has
become.
Within days, Dora's hometown has come to a veritable standstill as the thoroughfares are choked
by foliage, and its citizens are forced to employ bygone means of transportation -- walking and
talkingg. But stranger still, Dora disvoveres that she herself can somehow communicate with the
rampaging flora -- and is, therefore, perhaps the only person presently living who holds the key to
averting an unthinkable catastrophy to human life.
As Dora tracks the elusive murderer, the mystery of the trees begins to unravel as well. For the
two seemingly disparate events are intertwined, much like the brances of an oak. And, as Dora
gets closer to the truth, she comes to realize that the answer she seeks today may lie in the future
-- a future which is much closer the anyone dares think.
An inspired, thought-provoking novel of infinite surprise, unrestrined brilliance and mind-blowing
imagination, The Family Tree is a tour de force from Sheri S. Tepper, proving once
again why she is one of the most highly praised and beloved storytellers writing today.
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