The Tree of Life [Hardcover]

Hugh Nissenson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1985

The year is 1811. Having suffered a loss of faith, Thomas Keene, Congregational minister from New England, abandons the East and moves to Richland County on the Ohio frontier. The Tree of Life is Keene's journal: stories and jottings appear alongside accounting entries and poems, coarse jokes and sermons, woodcuts and maps. In this "Waste Book," Keene conveys his longing for a young widow, his fascination with John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), and his resolve in the face of the growing enmity between his fellow settlers and the Delaware Indians. The Tree of Life reveals a man of intellect and passion as he confronts the raw country.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This novel about settlers on the Ohio frontier at the time of the War of 1812 is cast in the form of a personal journal. The diarist is Thomas Keene, a former Maine minister who has lost his faith and who is seeking something in which to believe. Two other people dominate his journal: Fanny Cooper, a young widow with whom Keene has fallen in love, and the eccentric John Chapman, better known now as the legendary Johnny Appleseed. The terse journal format is well suited to convey the hardships of the frontier, where sudden death through accident, illness, or Indi an attack was omnipresent; but it is less effective in conveying the personalities of its characters. Even so, this is a worthwhile novel and one to recom mend to readers who enjoyed Conrad Richter's This Awakening Land (1966). Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"'The Tree of Life'is one of the most powerful, original, and disturbing books that I have read in a long time. Hugh Nissenson has caught the voice of the old-time diary keeper just exactly. It's uncanny, marvelous, so direct and deceptively simple that you know what pains he has taken. The book is a work of art and no one who reads it will ever forget it." -- David McCullough

"It is a book that plants deep seeds." --The New York Times "Displays numerous small glories." --The New York Times Book Review Nominated for a National Book Award in 1985 -- (The New York Times Book Review)

"It's a tale more haunting and moving than one thinks it can possibly be." -- Village Voice

"The Tree of Life is one of the most powerful, original, and disturbing books that I have read in a long time. Hugh Nissenson has caught the voice of the old-time diary keeper just exactly. It's uncanny, marvelous, so direct and deceptively simple that you know what pains he has taken. The book is a work of art and no one who reads it will ever forget it." -- David McCullough

"The Tree of Life" displays numerous small glories. Such as the puzzlement of both Keene and the local minister about where a neighbor's hybrid corn fits into the natural order of things. Such as Keene's steady incisive reports ("Chapman wagged his tongue all afternoon") on that exasperating and beguiling genus, the neighbors. "I'm amused to find how it's grown a person," Virginia Woolf wrote of her diary, "with almost a face of its own." In his imaginative blending of diary and novel, Mr. Nissenson has grown for us not merely the face of tormented Tom Keene, but a better-than-passable likeness of the past. -- The New York Times Book Review

"The juxtaposition of horror and information perfectly captures the genius of this imagined diary. Scarcely a word is wasted. Hardly an aspect of the struggle to found a new civilization remains untouched. The Tree of Life dramatizes, sometimes with almost unbearable intensity, the American dream and its attendant nightmare." -- TIME Magazine

[The Tree of Life] is alive. On first reading, it possesses us as a vital documentary of 19th century frontier life. On second reading, it confronts us where our deepest and most disturbing fantasies intersect with our sense of history. One can only conjecture where further readings will take us. Given the richness of its texture and the strength of whichever of its threads one pursues, one can imagine that its force will grow and take an ever tighter grip on our understanding of the American past. It is a book that plants deep seeds. -- The New York Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 159 pages
• Publisher: Harper & Row; 1st edition (October 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060151439
• ISBN-13: 978-0060151430
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,597,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real American History, May 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Tree of Life (Paperback)

This book is like nothing I've ever read before. It is brilliant. Read it. This is history come alive. Rattlesnake bites, Indian skirmishes, visionaries and slaves and frustrated widows--all the true voices of the American Frontier come through this "journal" with unbelievable power and desperate longing.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Simply Profound Life, June 6, 2002

By 

Exguyparis "exguyparis" (Lansdowne, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Tree of Life (Paperback)

In 1811, Thomas Keene, a minister, loses his faith and travels to Ohio. In this sparse, concise "diary," we get to know Thomas, his mundane activities, his fantasies, and his remarkable adventures on the American frontier. Thomas writes of routine events (his cash accounting, his business selling home-made whiskey), his sexual fantasies and realities, his relationships, his drunkenness, war, Indian legends, and the remarkable hardships of frontier life.

Through the series of simple journal entries, sketches, drawings, and accounting entries, author Hugh Nissenson creates a profound portrait of a fascinating man. Nissenson is a master of "artificial reality"- the structure, style, and false references lend an air of truth to this work of fiction. Historical facts and figures weave seamlessly with the fictional elements. The War of 1812 and John Chapmann (Johnny Appleseed) are prominently featured in the story. And Nissenson himself created the drawings and sketches attributed to his fictional character (the cover is a sample of his work).

I loved this book. It creeps into your mind and comes back to haunt you. I admire Hugh Nissenson's ability to paint, with deceptively-simple strokes, a deep, rich, intimate, lush landscape and a deeply moving character.

If you read and enjoy this book, be sure to read Nissenson's The Song of the Earth, in which he leaps forward rather than back in time for a stunning vision of what might be.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply put: A Masterpiece, January 29, 2009

By 

Robert H. Patton "guitars & books" (Darien, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Tree of Life (Paperback)

Writing this review two days after John Updike's death, I'm moved to note, through the contrasting example of Nissenson's career, the drastic difference in the two authors' range of printed output. And yet, if artists may be judged by a single work, then The Tree of Life puts Nissenson on the same plane as Updike. Indeed, it may be more indisputably a masterpiece than any single offering by Updike (though in the wide view Updike reigns supreme over every American contemporary and possibly over every American author ever). As for The Tree of Life, however, it is concisely, precisely beautiful, harrowing, historically evocative, and spiritually unsettling in a way that confirms the spirit. Hard to do, you say? Read it.