‘At once hypnotic and raging, dangerously real and brimming with hope, Greenwood is that most necessary epic that binds our human frailties to our planet's possibilities. Michael Christie tenderly rakes the past and paints a future without flinching. I read this book with my heart in my throat, in my hands, in my gut; I read this book heart-full.’
Katy Simpson Smith, author of The Story of Land and Sea
‘A dystopian, historical, speculative, multigenerational family saga, this marvellous, generous book is best enjoyed in a forest.’
Sharon Bala, author of The Boat People
‘There are plenty of visionary moments laced into [Christie’s] shape-shifting narrative … Greenwood penetrates to the core of things.’
Michael Upchurch, The New York Times Book Review
‘[E]ven if you’re suffering from what you might call Literary Tree Fatigue, Christie’s novel is worth reading, in part because it’s a clever mash-up of genres that distinguishes itself from its literary cousins and earns its bulk … broad messages aside, the heart of the novel is a winning and energetic chase story … When do we choose self-preservation, and when do we choose survival in a broader sense? The question has never gone away, but Greenwood closes with the message that it’s increasingly urgent.’
Mark Athitakis, The Washington Post
‘A riveting tale of love, greed, sacrifice and betrayal — and an ode to the beauty of trees.’
Nicole Abadee, The Age
‘An arresting eco-parable.’
Alfred Hickling, The Guardian
‘A lively eco-parable.’
Claire Armistead, The Guardian
‘An epic, ambitious quilt of themes, stitched together by the compelling arc of the family.’
Sally Adee, New Scientist
‘A lyrical, meditative take on a world in which forests have become such rare commodities that they are turned into therapeutic retreats for the very wealthy.’
Sally Adee, New Scientist
‘Christie skillfully teases out the details in a page-turner of a saga that complements sylvan books such as Sometimes a Great Notion and The Overstory… Beguilingly structured, elegantly written: eco-apocalyptic but with hope that somehow we’ll make it.’
Kirkus Reviews, starred review
‘Christie dazzles with this richly woven historical tracking five generations of the ‘trouble-plagued’ Greenwood clan and the environmental devastation wrought by its lucrative timber empire … [A] spellbinding family saga reflecting fiction's intensifying interest in the climate crisis as well as humanity's innate desire to make amends for past wrongs and start anew.’
Library Journal, starred review
‘This superb family saga will satisfy fans of Richard Powers’s The Overstory while offering a convincing vision of potential ecological destruction.’
Publishers Weekly
‘[S]tructured like the growth rings of a tree, spanning generation ... [Greenwood] looks at families, love and secrets against the backdrop of the 'magic' of trees.’
CBC News
‘An impressive ecological novel … From the future, to the present, the past and back again, Greenwood is a moving novel of family sacrifice and love for a natural world.’
Colin Steele, The Canberra Times
‘[An] eerily real-feeling future.’
Globe and Mail
‘Greenwood is a family story, fractured and often contradictory (as the best family stories usually are ... bring[ing] together the intimate and the sweeping, the human world and the natural, the past and the future.’
Quill & Quire
‘This is one of ‘those’ books. One of ‘those’ books that grabs your heart and soul and fills you up to overflowing with the immensity of all that’s contained within its pages.’
Gill Chedgey, NB magazine
‘Rich with evocative descriptions of West Coast wilderness and anchored by a deep visceral bond to the trees that sustain us all, Greenwood is a literary page-turner that manages to be both nostalgic and modern, personal and political, intimately human and big-picture historical. In an era of so much uncertainty, it is comforting to see novelists begin to work through the biggest issue of our age. And, in this case, convert our collective suffering into brilliant, beauty-filled art.’
Toronto Star
‘Greenwood is a sprawling and ambitious novel of industrial greed, climate catastrophe, familial bonds and a little bit of hope.’
Keith Cadieux, Winnipeg Free Press
‘[W]ith the expert, deft hands of a seasoned carpenter, author Michael Christie carefully and methodically pieces together a story as intricate as the rings within a tree. The result is a deeply compelling novel of family and memory … Christie creates a sense of poetic, organic symmetry through rich characters and evocative, almost tactile descriptions … [W]hat stands out most by the end is the way in which Christie has been able to evoke and give voice to the way the cumulative effect of time and memory weighs on us all in ways both uplifting and terrifying. Greenwood is a towering, profound novel about the things that endure even as the world seems to be moving on.’
Matthew Jackson, Bookpage
‘Whatever 2038 is really like when it arrives, Canadians and others will still be reading Greenwood for its high energy, its memorable characters, and its anguished love for the forests.’
Crawford Kilian, The Tyee
‘A remarkable achievement.’
Carol Off, As It Happens
‘Astonishing … What makes Greenwood an essential climate-change novel is that, rather than obsessing over a single, final apocalypse to come, it attempts something much harder and more ambitious: to transcend altogether the tropes of victim and antagonist … And to instead present humanity and nature as deeply, ultimately, endlessly interconnected … Greenwood offers a rare sentiment in the climate emergency: hope.’
Damian Tarnopolsky, The Walrus
‘Greenwood is a compulsively readable, beautifully observed, deeply felt and rich tale that roves across Canadian history and landscape.’
Pile by the Bed
‘Greenwood is a brilliant novel that demonstrates the ghastly effects of treating the environment as a commodity. This really is a novel for our times.’
Theresa Smith Writes
‘[A] timely, moving novel.’
Damien Lawardorn, Aurealis
‘A compulsively readable, beautifully observed, deeply felt and rich tale that roves across Canadian history and landscape.’
Robert Goodman, The Blurb
‘An absorbing and original epic.’
Dan Shaw, Happy Magazine
‘Greenwood’s powerful narratives, fascinating characters, and lovely prose full of beautiful specificity, takes on our contemporary fears for the world. This is one of those novels you thrust at friends and insist: You have to read this!’ FIVE STARS
Wendy Waring, Good Reading
Praise for If I Fall, If I Die:
‘If I Fall, If I Die is an expertly crafted work of great heart and sensitivity. I can’t recall a truer or more beautiful debut.’
Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers
Praise for If I Fall, If I Die:
‘An astonishing piece of work. Christie combines lyrical prose and true-to-life characters — and skateboarding — to craft a remarkable tale of mothers and sons, and what it means to grow up.’
Philipp Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of The Son
