The Trees

Written by Conrad Richter

Narrated by Danny Campbell

The Awakening Land trilogy traces the transformation of a middle-American landscape from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The trilogy earned author Conrad Richter immense acclaim, ranking him with the greatest of American mid-century novelists. It includes The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) and follows the varied fortunes of Sayward Luckett and her family in southeastern Ohio.



The Trees is the story of an American family in the wilderness—a family that "followed the woods as some families follow the sea." The time is the end of the eighteenth century, the wilderness is the land west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River. But principally, The Trees is the story of a girl named Sayward, eldest daughter of Worth and Jary Luckett, raised in the forest far from the rest of humankind, yet growing to realize that the way of the hunter must cede to the way of the tiller of soil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781541431959

Reviews for The Trees

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've had paperback copies of this trilogy in my stash for many years, always saying I would read them, since I liked his "Light in the Forest." I finally read the first one. Pretty good, kind of poetic, about the hardships of being first settlers in the vast forest of the Northwest Territory, and trying to keep family together after early death of the mother and a wandering father, etc. It's from viewpoint of oldest daughter and a quick read for me.

[ellenh_28 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Someone called this book "Like a grown-up, raw version of Little House books" and it's so true. Mr Richter writes in a way that you think it's real, like those memoirs of early pioneers but with more depth and quality. Not sure if I'll read the rest of the series, but he left me curious to know what happens to the rest of the family.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Luckett family: Father Worth, Mother Jary, and children Sayward, Genny, Achsa, Wyitt, Sulie, and hound Sarge, find their way to the deep woods of Ohio after being driven out of Pennsylvania by famine in 1795. Hoping for a new life, they discover they are in a foreign land of multiple misunderstandings. The family has trouble cultivating the soil so food is scarce. Hunting even the smallest of animals keeps them fed. Illness hovers over them constantly until finally mother Jary is taken by consumption. The family misunderstands the neighboring native tribe and as a result, distrust and fear them in equal measure. [As an aside, I had to admit it broke my heart when the tribe violently skin a wolf alive for his pelt and then let the poor creature flee into the woods. It was so hard to read of such cruelty.] Other tragedies befall the family but somehow Sayward, the main character, shows true grit and a “woodsy” spirit.

[rsairs_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this look at early pioneer life when Ohio was still the wild northwest. I have read that this book was well-researched and linguistically accurate. I mention it along with Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth, and Cather's O Pioneers or My Antonia. I might include Jackson's Ramona. These are American stories, and I can't help but wish more people would read them. Laura Wilder will give you one look as those dynamics, but these books need to be considered. I hope I don't offend the "Little House on the Prairie" fans, but these other titles are adult.

[abycats_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Have never read a portrait of life life this about the western edge of colonial American civilization -- then, not far past the Appalachians. Succeeds beautifully in its descriptions of families totally reliant on each other for all needs. The isolation, ohmigawd, the isolation. How very brave (and perhaps mildly psychotic) our forebears were to keep pushing out to where they could live alone with nature's generosity and harshness. Could be a hard read in places but worth the time and effort.

[larryerick · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

From a purely storyline point of view, this is not a particularly compelling fictional narrative. It's essentially about everyday life of a family in a small community. Yet, this story is about early American settlers shortly after the founding of the country. It is most definitely not a Walt Disney Daniel Boone-Davey Crockett type accounting of life back then. These settlers enter the real frontier much like we might imagine going into the deepest parts of the Amazon jungle in present day. Life is barebones and extremely rustic. And the author does not stop there. He studied exactly how people talked back then, their phrasing, etc., and presents his narrative in the same language style. This adds significantly to the realism of the story. Unfortunately, it also makes the reader struggle more than usual with the flow of the writing, much like the average person may struggle somewhat with the person speaking their shared language with a really strong foreign accent. The reader has to "learn" the vernacular along the way. Nevertheless, the struggle is worth it.

[jeffome · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rather dark story of true poineers settling in very unsettled deep woods of Ohio....to them the Northwest, as best it was known at the time. This hearty family with virtually nothing, leaves Pennsylvania and heads west for better hunting territory. They live entirely off the land and eventually scrape together a home and a semblance of life, with a small determined community eventually collecting around them over a period of years. Much tragic loss is endured, and little in the way of creature comforts for our heroine, Sayward, the eldest daughter of this family of 2 parents and 5 kids. This is one of those books that makes you sit up and say...."Gee, and i thought i was having a bad day!" I think more of us would benefit from reading more of those! This is the first of a trilogy, and i have the others waiting patiently on my shelf....I shall see where they go from here.

[haroldtitus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Conrad Richter’s “The Trees” is the first of a series of three novels called “The Awakening Land.” The third novel, “The Town,” won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Based on the quality I perceived in “The Trees,” I intend to read the entire series.

One reason I liked this novel so much is that Richter’s characters are so rich and diverse. This is especially true of the Luckett family members, the story’s central characters.

Worth Luckett is ill-suited for settlement life. He is a “woodsy,” an expert in the ways of hunting, a man who has “itchy feet.” His driving passion is to hunt and explore places he has never seen. Soon after the Revolutionary War, when game becomes scarce in frontier Pennsylvania, he moves his family into the nearly impenetrable woods of Ohio where he builds a cabin in a forest so dense that sunlight barely penetrates. “It was a sea of solid treetops broken only by some gash where deep beneath the foliage an unknown stream made its way,” the author narrates. Not entirely selfish, Worth demonstrates several times during the story his love for his wife and children.

His wife Jary is a practical-minded, instinctively wise woman who values the presence of neighbors but is loyal to the wishes of her man. She dislikes the absence of sunlight in the forest where Worth builds their cabin, but she accepts her lot. “She had had her say and what good did it do her? The time to have set herself against this place was away back in the old state when Worth claimed the squirrels were leaving the country. Now she and her young ones were here and here likely they would stay.” In poor health, Jary dies early in the novel.

The eldest of the five children is Sayward Luckett, the novel’s main character. At the beginning of the novel she is seventeen, intuitive in judgment, strong both physically and emotionally, sensitive to the needs of others, entirely dependable but subservient to no one. After Jary’s death Worth turns to Sayward to resolve difficult family-matters. Sayward becomes her siblings’ mother.

The next oldest child is Genny, sweet in disposition, physically attractive, a gentle, naive soul whose presence enriches the lives of her family members and of neighbors the family eventually meets. She is a vulnerable character about whom we feel protective. The author places her in a situation that causes us much concern.

The third oldest child is Achsa, quite the opposite of Genny. Achsa is physically powerful and cynical. She frequently taunts her siblings -- especially Genny. She has a mean streak. We discover that she is quite devious.

The second youngest child is Wyitt, the only boy. Wyitt is a reincarnation of his father. He is a proud, bull-headed boy determined to become as skilled a hunter as his father. Like his father, he is not entirely self-absorbed. In several important instances he demonstrates his love for his sisters.

The youngest child is Sulie, the apple of Worth’s eye. She is spirited, inquisitive, honest in her actions, not hesitant in expressing her feelings and beliefs. “One time she could look at you with such a helpless mouth, and then when you least expected it, she was spunky as a young coon and said grand things that no one dared think of.” Like Genny, she is a “beloved character,” somebody we especially want protected. The author places her also in a situation that causes us substantial concern.

Several other characters are well crafted. Two are particularly important. There is Louie Scurrah, a villain of sorts, a former companion of the historical person Simon Girty. Scurrah and Girty had lived with Indians and participated in the torture of American soldiers prior to the Revolutionary War. Louie is a charmer whom only Sayward and Sulie continue to distrust. The other important character is Portius Wheeler, the “Solitary,” an eloquent Bay State lawyer who had chosen to live “out in the bush by his lonesome. Most times you couldn’t get any more talk out of him than a deaf and dumb mute.”

I appreciated just as much the novel’s feel of authenticity.

First of all, the story is historically informative. I read how a forest cabin was built, what animals were hunted, what material goods forest women valued, what food was cooked, what tools a “woodsy” needed, what goods the local trading post desired and traded, what clothes were worn, and in a cabin housing seven people what comprised beds.

Visual detail also provides authenticity.

***

She [Sayward] could see him [Wyitt] in her mind, yonder through the ups and downs of life, skinning deer and trap-drowned mink and otter, giving a rap over the head to foxes that hid in bushes ashamed to be caught and to coons that sat up as big as you please on a log as if they didn’t have a trap and clog hanging to one paw. Snared panthers would shed real tears when he pulled out his hunting knife, and beaver would swim out of their smashed houses and find he had left no ice for them to come up and breathe under. …

That shock of sandy hair would be farther down over his shoulders then and his young face that had hardly fuzz on it as yet would be covered thick with a sandy beard. His buckskins would be bloody where he wiped his hands, and his hair would be full of nits. Not often would he wash, least of all his itchy feet.

***

Adding to the feeling of authenticity is the author’s style of narration. Here is an example -- Genny’s observation of preparations for a Fourth of July celebration.

***

She had almost forgotten how it felt to get among a passel of folks on pleasure bent. The young ones were making high jack all over the place, wrestling and fighting, racing and wading, swinging on creepers, every last one yelling at the other and none listening. Some of the men were pulling a flag up on a high hickory limb. Others were laying meat over a pit of white oak coals to roast. This was one time, they said, when the he’s would show the she’s how to cook. The women didn’t mind. They were glad to get out of it for once and go off to themselves yonder on some logs with nothing to do but lay their littlest ones on patches of moss and swap news among themselves.

***

We witness authenticity also in the way characters speak.

Genny is concerned that her sister Sayward, whom she admires, might want to marry Jake Tench, a settlement man rumored to have fathered several Indian children. He and a boy who has a romantic interested in Genny come calling. After the two males leave, Genny demonstrates silently her displeasure.

***

“What’s a ailin’ you?” Sayward broke out at last.

Genny turned her back

“You needn’t talk to me after what you done.”

“Now I done something and don’t know what it was,” Sayward complained.

“You know good enough,” Genny told her. “Jake Tench!

She could feel Sayward shake with quiet laughter.

“Don’t you fret about Jake. He mought make free with a Shawanee wench but he kain’t with me.”

“He mought marry you,” Genny said.

Sayward’s voice hardened.

“Not him,” she told her shortly. “Nor any other man where spits in my fire when I got bread a bakin’.”

***

Lastly, I value this novel for its portrayal of the universality of life. Good and bad people and a lot of people in between populate “The Trees,” as they have done so and do in real life. Conrad Richter’s characters mattered to me. Passages, like this one, stirred my emotions.

***

When they let her back to the bed, Jary was light as a pack of dried and brittle fox skins. Through the folds of homespun Sayward thought she could feel a coldness like stone. ….

He [Worth] turned and went to the open door and looked out at the black forest where gray daylight was just beginning to come. No use turning your back on this, Sayward wanted to tell him. Whether you looked or no, death would come and life would go. Up in the loft all signs of the young ones had vanished. Sayward reckoned they were lying face down on their beds.

***

Sayward reflects at the end of the novel: “Let the good come … for the bad would come of its own self. … That’s how life was, death and birth, grub and harvest, rain and clearing, winter and summer. You had to take one with the other, for that’s the way it ran.” The particulars of this theme and the excellence of the writing make “The Trees” a quality novel.

[fuzzi_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A can't-put-it-down book, of early settlers to the Ohio valley, where the trees were huge, old, and a wonder to those arriving from settlements in Pennsylvania.

Worth Luckett brings his wife and children to the woods of 1800s Ohio, and tries to settle down to farming while the woods and "mountain man" life tempt him to stray from his duty.

[cheriedooryard · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As they say, classics are classics for a reason. This is one of the loveliest, grimmest, most honest, most immersive books I remember reading. If you've ever wondered about the challenges, opportunities, and plain old primal fears that our country's pioneers faced, this will teach it to you beautifully. I'm so glad it is part of a trilogy and that I will be able to get to know Sayward more.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Trees is the first book in the Awakening Land Trilogy. Richter received the Pulitzer Prize for The Town, the third book of the trilogy about American pioneers, but according to the short biography in the back, The Trees was the one he "felt was most alive." Maybe that's because it was about when the land was most alive. It's never stated when this is set, but the references to fifteen stars on the American flag puts it sometime early in the 1790s. It's mostly told through the point of view of Sayward Luckett, who was fifteen years old when she came to the territory with her family. This is how she describes her first glimpse of where she'd come to live for the rest of her life:

For a moment Sayward reckoned that her father had fetched them unbeknownst to the Western ocean and what lay beneath was the late sun glittering on green-black water. Then she saw that what they looked down on was a dark, illimitable expanse of wilderness. It was a sea of solid treetops broken only by some gash where deep beneath the foliage an unknown stream made its way. As far as the eye could reach, this lonely forest sea rolled on and on till its faint blue billows broke against an incredibly distant horizon.

I loved the voice of this short novel. Richter was born in 1890 and knew people who could tell him of the early pioneer days first hand, and he talks in his acknowledgements of the many primary sources he had read of the period. The voice he creates is alien enough to suggest a different place and time without ever becoming hard to comprehend. And though this was written in 1940, the way he writes women never feels dated. His Sayward and her sisters Genny and Sulie come across as very real. This picture of Native Americans isn't very flattering, but I don't hold it against him since that doesn't come from what we "see" but the thoughts and remarks of the white settlers for whom it rings true. All in all I greatly enjoyed this. It's like an adult Little House book, with touches of lyricism, humor, and moving moments.

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Conrad Richter's work was published in 1940, so even if he had been writing in a contemporary voice, it might have come off dated...he chose to write in a voice from long before and it was perfect. I don't know how he managed to use vernacular and slang that was so easy to understand. But that wasn't all. The story was a great read. His style and the way the tale of this family's triumphs and tragedies managed to rush along and take its time simultaneously. I'll be picking up the next in the trilogy soon.

[hollyinnnv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Looking through the wonderful resource, All Through the Ages, I came upon a book that is highly recommended. It is the first novel of the Awakening Land series, The Trees. Set in the Ohio Valley after the Revolutionary War, Richter’s novel is imbued with vibrant characters and a fast-moving story line.
Beginning with the Luckett family’s move from Pennsylvania to Ohio, the story brings to life the challenges of frontier settlers. The Lucketts must not only deal with difficulties that the land presents, but also personal ones. From the very first pages of the book, the author causes you to love this family and yearn to discover what they make of their lives. Cleverly written, the plot is not predictable or corny. Nor is it unduly dreary. This is not the typical settler love story, settler adventure story or everything-works-out-neat-as-a-pin settler story.
Interestingly, the author used many primary sources, including interviews, to come up with the material for the book. It lends an air of authenticity to the story. Along with great characterization, the author also writes with a beautiful style that emotes vivid details, yet does not stand in the way of comfortable reading. Here is the way the novel begins:
“They moved along in the bobbing, springy gait of a family that followed the woods as some families follow the sea.”
I would encourage anyone who loved Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a child to try The Trees. You are bound to love Sayward just as you loved Laura. And, if you did not like the Little House books, you may truly be surprised at how much you enjoy The Trees. The natural characters and smooth story line is a breath of fresh air. The Trees is delightful.

[maz111_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my all time favourite reads. The main character, Sayward Luckett Wheeler, is such a strong woman. Conrad Richter's description of pioneer life is well-researched and enhanced by his use of dialect. Along with the sequels The fields and The town (a Pulitzer Prize winner), this Ohio trilogy is historical fiction at it's best.

[bethab8020 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. It is about the history of frontier life Ohio and it kept me riveted throughout the entire book. I really marvel at people who just pick up and move to a completely new, unsettled place and start there lives over. It is so different from the way we live today. Highly recommended.

[ikest_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Seemingly real life migrating West from Ky to Ohio