Treeborne: A Novel

by Caleb Johnson

In the tradition of Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish and Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist comes a debut novel of an unusual family who have made their home at the margins of an unusual place.

Janie Treeborne lives on an orchard at the edge of Elberta, Alabama, and in time, she has become its keeper. A place where conquistadors once walked, and where the peaches they left behind now grow, Elberta has seen fierce battles, violent storms, and frantic change—and when the town is once again threatened from without, Janie realizes it won’t withstand much more. So she tells the story of its of Hugh, her granddaddy, determined to preserve Elberta’s legacy at any cost; of his wife, Maybelle, the postmaster, whose sudden death throws the town into chaos; of her lover, Lee Malone, a black orchardist harvesting from a land where he is less than welcome; of the time when Janie kidnapped her own Hollywood-obsessed aunt and tore the wrong people apart.

As the world closes in on Elberta, Caleb Johnson’s debut novel lifts the veil and offers one last glimpse. Treeborne is a celebration and a of how the past gets mixed up in thoughts of the future; of how home is a story as much as a place.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Southern, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, The United States Of America

310 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 5, 2018

About the author

Caleb Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne. He grew up in Arley, AL, studied journalism at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and earned an MFA from the University of Wyoming.

Johnson has worked as a newspaper reporter, a janitor, and a whole-animal butcher, among other jobs. He has been awarded a Jentel Writing Residency, and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Currently, he lives with his wife, Irina, and their dog, Hugo, in Valle Crucis, NC, where he teaches at Appalachian State University while working on his next novel.

Reviews

[Angela M]

Thought I would like this more - southern, a family saga of sorts. I don’t mind a story that isn’t a straight narrative, but I had a hard time connecting in this one and it was too much of an effort to concentrate on who was who and the various time frames after reading 50 pages .

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

The eighty year old Hernando de Soto Dam in Elberta, Alabama was compromised and expected to crumble and flood the surrounding area. The Authority had been trying to purchase the lands and relocate inhabitants including elderly Janie Treeborne. Janie, a third generation Treeborne, refused to leave The Seven, her seven hundred acre parcel. She insisted that "me and this place is just too tangled up".

In present day Elberta, Janie lives alone on the edge of a roadside peach orchard that she bought from Lee Malone. "It was sixteen dollar and a pack of chewing gum". Lee Malone taught Janie everything he had been taught about the peach business. Peaches were everywhere in Elberta...the "Peach Radio Show", The Peach Day Incident...even peach pits in mailboxes.

Grandma Maybelle (Maw Maw May) was Janie's hero. Family dissension occurred when, upon her death, all Maybelle's worldy possessions were found to be willed to her daughter, Tammy. Sons Ren and Luther each received five dollars. Janie Treeborne was determined to protect The Seven at all costs now that grandmomma was gone. Grandpa Hugh, when not at work, was a builder of "assemblies", creations made from odds and ends found on land and sea. One "assemblie" of note was "dirt boy" aka "Crusoe", Janie's constant companion and comforter. Crusoe was a mud boy sculpture who magically performed human tasks, or so thought Janie.

Janie recounts, in spurts, events and happenings in three time periods......1929, 1958 and the present. The family acreage, The Seven, was everything. It was the only constant in a family replete with unhappy marriages and unfulfilled dreams. "Treeborne: A Novel" by Caleb Johnson is a debut Southern Gothic read. Many of the quirky characters lie, cheat, steal and deceive. This reader felt a disconnect and lack of empathy for the woes of the backwater Treebornes.

Thank you Macmillan-Picador and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Treeborne".

[Diane S ☔]

Putting this aside for now. May pick it back up later. Just don't have the concentration for it at this time.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very difficult read. I got through the first half of the book and then lost all attention and concentration. There are a few time different time periods (going backwards in time) which is confusing in and of itself. The characters, the place, the language and the habits, are all Old South. The characters are confusing in that they are all pretty much related in one way or another. But most especially confusing, is the weird boy/doll (?) Crusoe, made of sand and mud and whatever other concoction. In one part of the story he speaks and moves magically, in another, he’s a lump of “stuff” that teenaged Janie carries around with her wherever she goes as he has ties to her artist granddaddy. Crusoe, aka Dirt Boy, was actually made as a work of art with materials but I’m lost as to how/when/if he was able to interact with others. And I’m lost as Janie, many years later, drags this thing around with her, it’s body losing sand and dirt, her having to reshape his misshapen head with clay. What in the hell is this thing?????

This is a historic story of a small town and the everyday lives and quirks of its inhabitants and their legacy. I kind of enjoyed reading the first half but then I kept getting more confused as I plodded on. I did put it aside to see if I could pick on back up, but was still unsuccessful and getting irritated with it, so made the decision to stop ❌ just stop!

I also didn’t want to read anymore about that stupid Crusoe “thing.”

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Treeborne is an achievement. It has the fearlessness of a first novel but it is told with dizzying skill. There were many choices which puzzled me initially, but by the last page, I understood that it was all laid down just as messy and perfect as life. It's a book that begs to be re-read. The life and death of Elberta, Alabama is told through the eyes of the Treeborne family, its women in particular. There are star-crossed lovers, dreams deferred, shattered glory, a giant catfish in the trunk of a car...oh, just read it!

[Janelle Janson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Picador for providing my free copy of TREEBORNE by Caleb Johnson - all opinions are my own.

The story centers around three generations of the Treeborne family and their relationship with beautiful Elberta, Alabama. The story is rooted in Southern vernacular and is told in a series of flashbacks. The novel starts off in the present day with Janie Treeborne being interviewed about her life and the destruction of the Hernando de Soto Dam which threatens her home and livelihood. This story is like none other, with a quirky cast of characters, and told with a peculiarity that I enjoyed.

Janie provides the central narrative, but the story is mainly told through the viewpoint of the Treeborne family. Through Janie’s flashbacks, we learn of her grandfather Hugh who helped build the dam, her Aunt Tammy, Maybelle, and her father, Ren, just to name a few, all tracing a time period of eighty years starting from 1929. My favorite aspect of the book is the unique writing style, the authenticity of life in the south, and the eccentric and flawed, albeit lovely, characters. Johnson is an extremely talented author and wrote a very intriguing and interesting debut. I cannot wait for what comes out next.

[KC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Multiple points of view, several generations, and three different timelines carry this story's remarkable unveiling of the Treeborne family who owned and operated a peach orchard in rural Alabama. I loved the cover but sadly the constant flipping from present day to the 50's and then the 20's and back again made it difficult for me to connect to any of the characters.

[Bonnye Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

GNab This debut novel is classic southern - Caleb Johnson can take his place among the best of them. He brings us angst and anger as well as love and laughter, and it all fits neatly into the background of small town boredom and anti-miscegenation laws. Although it would be hard to be bored in Johnson's Elberta, Alabama. I enjoyed the way he folded in the influence of the Elberta Tribe - something not often acknowledged in modern southern literature - and the understanding and love obvious in the characters of his older citizens. Also the importance of the local employers - not necessarily the Authority, bringing in and maintaining the dam on the Elberta River, but the locals keeping the town moving along in spite of progress. Dirt boy Crusoe is a classic, as well. And Hugh's found art - his assemblies that more or less took over his life. The appearance of the hole in Lee's guitar. I loved the way the orchard was passed down generation to generation, and it's importance in the community. And the women - I loved all the women. Janie of course, who is our spokesperson but also Maybelle and Tammy.

Though the story travels back and forth through time, from 1929 into late 1959, it is easily followed and understood. the story is tightly written and the characters flawed but lovely. This is an author I will follow.

I received a free electronic copy of this southern novel from Netgalley, Caleb Johnson, and Picador in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.
pub date June 5, 2018
Picador

[Alena · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had to chart my enjoyment of this book it would be jagged peaks and valleys. I was confused, swept away, frustrated, moved and ultimately satisfied. Set in rural Alabama in the late 40s, 50s and “present” day, this tale of family, place and arts winds up and down and in and around several characters. What sparkles most is the tangible sense of place Johnson evokes. I could see, smell and even taste the environment. But I could never quite grab hold of the characters and that prevented me from truly engaging.

[Sarah Eustache · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book that I really struggled to read. It was written very well, but it wasn’t the kind of book that I normally enjoy reading. The details and descriptions are great, but for some reason, I just couldn’t get into the story.

The characters talk with a slang, and it was hard to get past it at certain points. This venaucular was well written and takes a lot of talent to write, but quickly made me want to stop reading. There are also several different characters and different time frames, and I was often confused in the midst of the story.

Janie is the narrarator of the story which gives it an interesting twist.

Other readers rated this book quite high, but did say that it was a challenging read. Maybe one day I will try to read it again when I have more time to focus on the story and really take my time with it, but for now it must go back on the shelf.

I gave up on this book on page 55, and couldn’t bear to spend anymore time struggling through the pages.

Thank you to the publisher, Picador, for sending me an ARC of Treeborne in exchange for an honest review. Receiving a copy of this book did not effect my opinion in any way. All opinions are my own.

Thanks so much for reading this book review.

[Bamboozlepig · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Holy crap, this was hard to follow, not only plot-wise but sentence-wise as well. There were a lot of characters to keep track of and what was up with the dirt baby? Never did figure out what it was supposed to be because after about two chapters of crap that didn't make much sense, I gave it up.

[Donna Everhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review for New York Journal of Books https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'What makes an Elberta so sweet, Lee Malone knew, is how long it’s allowed to trouble the tree.'

Could that be true of Janie Treeborne too, being allowed to trouble her own land? This southern fiction debut begins with Janie Treeborne refusing to leave her family land, The Seven in Elberta, Alabama despite knowing that ‘the water is coming.’ The Hernando de Soto dam has ‘served it’s purpose for 80 years’, her grandfather having built it, her own father Ren an engineer but it is failing now, it must be imploded. But there is nothing that will make her leave, no sir. She has fought long and hard to maintain her hold, she would’t even trade her bad eye for a good one to leave this land that she is as much a part of as the trees. “…me and this place is just too tangled up.”

Janie tells her entire family history, and how her aunt Tammy came to be kidnapped, because everything had to be preserved. “Life ain’t easy Sister.” Janie grew up a wild thing, as wild as the land, drinking from the water tadpoles swam in. Growing up wanting nothing more than to be just like her old grandmother Maybelle, filling her ears with great stories about the land. Janie spends her time toting around dirt boy Crusoe, a creation of her eccentric junk artist Grandaddy Hugh, one that talks to her, to the Treeborne kin. A peculiar thing, this living dirt boy, or is the family crazy? Furious that her aunt Tammy and Uncle Wooten want to log trees to sell and to build a new home, even leveling her grandfather’s “assemblies” to make a foundation for the place, she refuses to allow them to destroy everything. Discovering her MawMaw May’s will leave Tammy The Seven feels like a manipulation. Tammy doesn’t love the place, she wants to sell, she wanted all her life to be a movie star.Janie knows it was MawMaw’s true intention to see the land split among the silblings and so she devises a wild mean plan of her own, to ‘take care of’ her aunt. She is desperate to save the land she is obsessed with. MawMaw’s death is the catalyst that causes the wild thing in Janie to grow.

Telling of the past while being interviewed by her grandson, she too shares the story of Hugh Treeborne’s Seven Hundred Acre Junk Garden, his peculiar creations that a ‘Yankee’ took interest in and took advantage. We get to know many generations of Treebornes in the telling, all their longings and misdeeds. Lee Malone is as much a part of the Treebornes as Janie is, an African-American, the one who owned the Peach Pit bought for whatever money he had in his billfold, who later sells it to Janie, owning it all the same way he obtained it from the wealthy Mr. Prince. But Lee Malone is so much more than just the prior owner of the Peach Orchard, he and MawMaw had their own special relationship. When Tammy goes missing, somehow he is pulled into helping search, a funny thing considering all she has done to him. What happened to Maybelle, we at least understand more in the end, so many seemed to unravel with her tragic death. The stories are more about living with a family for a time, through the years and their antics in the wilds. Stubborn as hell our Janie is, even in her old bone days. Maybe the town has seen battles, but the Treebornes seem to battle each other and themselves more than anything. Hugh and Janie are eccentric characters, and the most fascinating but there were times I was lost in other characters stories taking me in too many directions. It’s a lot to keep up with, however the language is perfection and the southern dialogue is never abandoned, certainly not an easy thing to write.

I am curious to read more from this author, who understands a south few others can write as genuinely about.

Available Now

Picador

[Olivia Conway · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure about this book at first, but I truly liked it by the end. Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of books with strong senses of place, and this one fits that description as well. I like the idea of the town as a flawed, complex place that all of the characters fiercely love and can never truly leave. It reminds me of how I feel about Texas. The recurring image of people and places being swallowed by water while ideas and memories remain is also quite beautiful.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did Not Finish. It was well-told, and the backwards-in-time structure was really interesting, but I think small-town Alabama in 1958 is just not someplace I want to visit right now. Also, what's a "dirt boy?" This young girl keeps carrying one around with her (I think she's twelve? What's up with a twelve-year-old carrying an object around with her like this? It seemed definitely weird.) and it sounds like some strange doll but maybe it's more of a fetish with magic properties or something? It just seemed like a place where nobody's really very happy and you can just tell darker plots are going to be revealed. I'm just not in the mood right now.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bit of a challenging read for me at first. There are a few different timelines happening, along with several characters. Add to this some old school southern vernacular, and I had a couple of false starts. I just wasn't focused enough. But once I committed and really got into it, man what a beautiful story! I found myself feeling slightly emotional on a few occasions during the latter part of the book. The way that we say goodbye to some of the characters is downright cinematic. I'd love to see this made into a film. My hat's off to Caleb Johnson for creating this mammoth as his debut novel. Can't want to read more from him.

[Lindsey Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5 stars*
A haunting new generation southern gothic novel in which we learn how the past indelibly shapes the present in a small rural town in Alabama. The cast of characters of this novel is impressive and each one is so well rendered. From the young girl Janie who carries around the clay doll her grandfather Hugh left (a doll that comes to life frequently in the novel) to her aunt Tammy who wishes to be on the big screen in Hollywood and escape small town Alabama living to the black man her grandmother loved, Lee Malone, who somehow, despite deeply rooted racism, lives heartily among mostly white folks in town, Johnson shows off his literary talents in crafting characters who are memorable and incredibly unique. We switch back and forth between the late 1920s and the late 1950s and get brief moments in the present day, and so we get a full picture of this town and family’s history. Johnson relies on the verbal speech patterns to write his story and it took me a while to get used to his omission of prepositions, malapropisms, and frequent use of colloquial words like “Foot” to begin his sentences. But he does capture the rhythms and ideology of the rural South in impressive ways. This book is quirky, dark, atmospheric, and memorable. Johnson is a talented writer.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard Caleb Johnson on a Bitter Southerner podcast about the TVA. Being a Southern Lit fan and being familiar with the area, I decided to give his first book a try.

Overall I am glad I read this book. Johnson demonstrates a love of his homeland in North Alabama and pays homage to the people, land and the folklore of the area. I particularity enjoyed his use of the language through the expressions used by his characters. Some were new to me and some I have heard all my life. With the homogenization of American and Southern life, I appreciate the preservation of colorful turns of language.

The story is unique and very enjoyable and fantastical. He was inspired by "Big Fish" and it shows yet he creates his own tale.

The reason I gave this book 3 rather than 4 starts is at the beginning I had trouble with the timeline and kept having scan previous pages to get myself oriented. There was one section where the jump in time happened by creating a new paragraph. This was a jump that would usually be a new chapter.

I like supporting new and distinct voices. If you are a fan of Southern Lit, offbeat characters and language, read this one. Just know the first quarter of the book may require some backtracking. The rest of the book is worth the slight frustration.

[Liz Josey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful story that transports you to the old South and a certain time and way of thinking. A wonderful first novel.

[Pam]

Too many characters and just didn’t understand what the point of it was.

[Natasha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Confusing timeline.
Characters aren't introduced properly.
I literally have no idea what happened within the 300 pages.
Oh, and the dog dies.
Highly not recommended.

[Mary Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

MIGHT contain spoilers.
*************
Okay, for starters, it's Jim Crow era Alabama. You get what you get. Lots of N-word usage and some instances of violence toward the African American character. That's not the author's fault, that's just the sad history of where our country was in the 1920s-1950s (when the brunt of this story takes place).

Also, lots of animal cruelty/animal killings that, at at times, seemed to be there just for the shock value. I get why some of it was in there, but there were others I just thought "Why?"

Thirdly, lots of goings-on that seemed weird and random. I'm not sure what was up with that Crusoe doll, but the end reveals that this whole story is the ramblings of an unreliable narrator, so how much is true and how much is false in the unreliable narrator's life is unclear. I strongly dislike unreliable narrator plots. Remember that old game many of us might have played as kids called "Made ya look"? That to me is what unreliable narration comes off as. Like the author can just say whatever they want and then at the very end, says to the reader, "Haha, made ya look!" Like it's a cheap ending to a weird story. A bit like the "It was all a dream" sort of ending. A cop out instead of a nicely wrapped-up ending that ties the story together. Instead what I got was along the lines of, "Oh, just forget everything this old lady said, she has no idea what she's talking about because her mental state is deteriorating."
Okay, great, so now it feels like I've just wasted my time.
But that might be my own personal thing with unreliable narration in a story talking. I'm sure some people love it. For me, though, I think there is only one story that I have seen where the "unreliable narration" was done well. So, clearly, I wasn't the intended reader, although I did finish it.

Fourthly, I personally did not like a single character in this book. I engage best with stories if I find a character I like or can relate to. That was not the case with this.

3 stars only because it kept me engaged-enough to finish it, had realistic dialect of the characters (a skill that is hard to do that this author accomplished rather well), and wasn't too terribly written, meaning that I liked the way some descriptions were done. Not a lot of "telling." This did great on the "showing" aspect. I like great descriptions and I like books that show rather than tell. I could envision it all (even when I often didn't want to).

Not 4 or 5 stars because at times it was hard to follow and the constant head-bopping and constant back and forth between past and present was starting to give me vertigo and whiplash.

Some of the reviews in the back of the book were weird, too. Like, one that said "Poetic and funny." I failed to find either the poetry or funny. That's not really the author's fault, it's just something that struck me as a little "off" with this book. I mean, I get humor is relative but really there was nothing funny, IMO, about this. The dust jacket and reviews led me to believe this would be an amusing jaunt through the life of an old lady and I didn't get that at all. Instead I got a lot of cringe-worthy situations, some of which were so off-putting it made me want to skip ahead.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted so badly to enjoy this more than I did. I had no problem with the language, the story itself, or the transitions between past/more distant past/present. My main complaint was with the frame; it's an important connection and plays heavily into the significance of memory and storytelling in the South but it was introduced in a way that almost made me not want to keep reading. By the end, though I was more comfortable with it, I still think it lacked the development of the bulk of the narrative, which is unfortunate.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally don't leave reviews, but Treeborne lingered in my mind and I just have to share these thoughts.

This book was a fantastic read, immersing readers in its world right from the first page. This is not the kind of book you rush through, nor is it for the reader who doesn't enjoy close-reading. Johnson does a great job of elevating relevant details, designed to let the reader inhabit Elberta, Alabama, his fictional Southern town that feels as real and solid as the book in the reader's hands. The writing here has true heat, and it pulls you right down into the setting and characters.

That's a good feeling, given that every character in this book is fully-fledged. (Janie, Maybelle, and Lee Malone were this reader's favorites.) We get to inhabit their thoughts and see how they interact with each other and the Elberta land. Truly, even characters who aren't biologically part of the Treeborne family feel as if they are, so compressed is the rendering of this world. It's been a long time since I've come across such a stunning, place/family-driven novel, and this one serves, I think, as a model for how it's done.

What's most compelling is the way time blends together. Some characters die and then reappear again. The novel poses certain mysteries that it only answers later. Treeborne reads like a grandmother telling stories that blur into one another, because the essence of the story is what's most preserved in memory, the beginnings and endings becoming sharper only as she keeps ruminating. Or, as Johnson so eloquently writes, "You see, it ain't memory that ever goes, but us being able to peel it back" (191).

This was my favorite book of the summer. I'm still thinking about it, a little shocked that Johnson's Elberta is only fictional. I felt like I was there.

[D. Krauss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually end up tossing MFA-generated books across the room because they are pretentious, check listed, formulaic, committee-engineered works that only Bryn Mawr graduates enjoy. This one I didn’t toss, even though it has a really annoying three-to-four-page Acknowledgements section where the author thanks everybody he ever talked to in his life, including the dog. I regard acknowledgments in a fiction novel as a poor attempt by an egotistical, narcissistic, self-regarding author to not seem so. Spare us the false modesty. You want to thank somebody, dedicate the book to them.

Despite that, it’s a good novel.

Treeborne refers to a family of the same name living in the fictional Alabama town of Elberta, which is geographically hard to locate in the state. They have coal mines and trouble with the Authority, a thinly disguised version of the Tennessee Valley Authority, so this must be northern Alabama, but Elberta is on the way to the Florida beaches and, well, no, that’s LA- lower Alabama. Let’s just settle for it being an Alabama small town.

Janie Treeborne is telling the story of Elberta and the Treeborne's to her grandson or nephew, not sure which, as the Authority is getting ready to blow up a dam they put up decades before because it’s either no longer needed or about to fall down. All of Elberta has been evacuated except for Janie who refuses to leave so I guess she’s destined for the same fate as George Clooney at the end of O Brother Where Art Thou? And what is the story she relates?

Well, it’s Hugh Treeborne in 1928 and Tammie Treeborne in 1958 and Janie in the present day, with a lot of references to other persons and time periods all the way back to the local Indians and the unfortunate coming of Hernando de Soto. Who has a statue in the middle of Elberta and a yearly celebration during what’s called Peach Days.

Hugh Treeborne takes a job with the Authority in 1928 after the coal mines close, an act somewhat of a betrayal because the Authority is building a dam that will flood the mines, hence their need to close, but everyone else in town takes a job with the Authority, too, so it's a wash, so to speak. Hugh owns 700 acres (named, appropriately, the Seven Hundred) that will not be flooded and there he builds wondrous sculptures called assemblies and throws them around the woods willy and nilly. One day a city slicker named Loudermilk spots some of the assemblies and hauls them off with a promise that he’ll be back with money and recognition but ends up claiming the assemblies as his own and becomes a famous artist as a result. Hugh does nothing about this.

Hugh ends up marrying the town postmistress, Maybelle. He and she and Lee Malone, the only black man in the area with the courage to associate with the somewhat backwards and egregiously racist Elbertans, form an odd but intense friendship. Lee is too capable of a man in an area short of capable men so he is made foreman of the Peach Pit, a local market, and subsequent owner of the attached peach orchard, something that causes unacknowledged umbrage throughout the town but no one does anything about it. Sort of like Hugh and his assemblies.

In 1958, Tammie Treeborne, wife of Ren Treeborne, son of Hugh and Maybelle, tries to shoot Lee in the back of the head as he is led off under arrest through the middle of the Peach Day parade for the murder of Maybelle who was found dead in a marsh clutching one of Hugh’s lost assemblies. Seems she believes what everyone believes, that Lee murdered Maybelle. Tammie’s shot misses, which is an indictment of her skills because it was point blank right behind him, but Lee does lose the hearing in one ear. Incredibly, no one sees Tammie do this except her daughter, Janie, who then arranges for Tammie’s kidnapping and sequestering in an abandoned coal mine where she is found weeks later half starved. Did Janie arrange said kidnapping because of said assassination attempt? No, but because Tammie and Janie's father, Ren, are building a house in the Seven Hundred, which Janie considers a sacrilege. Of the three persons Janie enlists for the kidnapping, only a former football star named Ricky Birdsong, who is suffering from severe mental retardation due to the many hits to the head while playing, is sent to jail. And no, Maybelle wasn’t murdered, it was natural causes. Lee would never kill her. They were lovers. After Hugh died.

Got all that?

This is what the book is about, a series of vignettes and odd stories gleaned from three distinct periods of time about three distinct personalities and, while it may sound disjointed and random, which it is, it works. It does, it just does, even though it suffers from the pseudo-intellectual conceit that small town Alabama people are an odd, inbred lot that possess a secret meaning to everything they say and do. It’s sort of like a test, can you see the Emperor’s pseudo-intellectual clothes? I can’t and find all this MFA-generated hidden meaning k-rap tiresome. That doesn’t mean I’m calling this a fake story because it’s not; this actually reads as a rather genuine small town Alabama family. Just with a bit of mysticism tied in.

And MFA conceit.

[Jerry Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fine Southern Gothic.
Easily one of my top 2-3 books of the year, it's hard to believe this is a debut.
I can't wait for his next work.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put: Caleb Johnson has the potential to be one of this generation's best writers. Read this book.

[Salena Moffat · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. After precisely 7 pages of "would of" and "could of" instead of "would've/could've" I gave up in disgust. Who edited this thing?

[Blaine Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The debut novel of Caleb Johnson, Treeborne, opens with the elderly Janie Treeborne recounting possible, probable facts to a young relative where she explains how she came to live on her peach orchard; yet with the opening line ("The water was coming"), the novel forebodes a simmering presence underneath both the land and the story Janie unravels.

Janie Treeborne and the rest of the Treebornes have lived on the edge of Elberta, Alabama seeingly as long as the land existed -- or at least since the conquistadors from Spain came and went. In Treeborne, readers get almost the entire history of both the family and fictional Elberta, Alabama; however, to summarize the story does no justice to the beauty of the work therein. This is no mere history lesson of a made-up town.

Somehow Johnson has managed to fabricate a cast of characters so real, so vivid, so unlike any other set of people that it feels as if you could complete a Google search on each name and find a dusty, torn, black-and-white photo of each one, stained yellow and brown with the years and tears. There's Tammy, strong willed and eager to make it to Hollywood where the moving pictures are made; young Janie, a strange and wild beauty cut from nature itself; Hugh Treeborne, closest to a patriarch the Treebornes have and a folk artist long before there ever was such a term; Lee Malone, the life-long friend of the Treebornes, so often internally torn asunder for his desires and race in a pre-Civil Rights Movement Alabama. It's a complex narrative that Johnson weaves. The wonder of it is that the layered complexity never hinders the story nor makes it reading it a bore. Far from it.

While the cast is both diverse and wild, the man that haunts the entirety of the work, although his narrative lies mostly on the periphery, is the has-been football player Ricky Birdsong, damaged from multiple hits to the head, living somewhere between disabled and independent, pitiful. Ricky stands as a symbol of the retardation in the definition of the word rarely used: a musical suspension that resolves upward. It's Ricky's story that is perhaps the most profound in a novel where every person is rendered with love (and the heartbreak that so often ensues). Nothing is forever, after all. Ricky is also the key to one of the novel's multitude of themes: a review of the past will only reveal the dreams that have been destroyed, damaged, changed by outside forces. There is immense pain to be had in such reflection. It's a melancholy thought, but there's wisdom in Johnson's prose, elegantly stated when he writes of a character "[k]illing the future for the posterity of a moment that’d soon become past." So much of the novel jumps from the pages. Johnson slyly begins with little pathos early in Janie's narration only to knock you out midway through the novel with streams of emotional moments that build toward currents.

Treeborne isn't purely obsessed in the morbidity and trappings of life's discarded goals. There are plenty of moments of humor as well. Often reminiscent of Charles Portis, the hilarity colors a number of scenes, from a young would-be kidnapper farting out of nervousness to the residents' rich vernacular (which, by the way, is very realistic of Alabamians of its time and place).

In a nice balancing act, there are also many moments of oddities that have turns of downright horror. To share these would only spoil the creepiness that the novel hides in its darkest corners.

The richness of the writing is almost unfathomable for a debut. It's a novel that is as lived-in as a favorite shirt; sections of the writing will remind readers of remnants of an era that linger around grandparents' trailers and workshops or old libraries and maps, no matter the locale.

Johnson's book is a must read; it will stay with readers long after the ending, much like how the land that bore each of us still dictates who were are and what dreams are destined to live and die.

[Kyra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Treeborne is an epic family saga set in Elberta, Alabama and spans a period of 80 years, beginning in 1929. The story is mainly told through the viewpoint of the Treeborne family. Janie Treeborne provides the central narrative and is the spokesperson for the majority of the book. The story begins in the present day where an elderly Janie is being interviewed about her past and the destruction of the Hernando de Soto Dam, which threatens her home on the edge of a peach orchard that has been handed down from generation to generation. Through a lengthy series of flashbacks, we discover the extensive history of the Treeborne family and how their lives were rooted and intertwined with the history of Elberta. As the stories unfold, we begin to understand why Janie refuses to leave the land she fought her entire life for, despite the threat of incoming water.

The references to peaches throughout the story were delightful and reading about the orchard was fascinating, which came about by conquistadors from Spain bringing and planting the peach trees. I enjoyed learning about the dark history of the Treeborne family and getting to know all of the quirky characters. The Treeborne's are no strangers to hardships. We learn how Janie's grandfather, Hugh, assisted in building the dam which held the water back for all of those years and he was determined to protect Elberta's legacy. Hugh made strange sculptures from found objects and created wild Janie's precious doll, "dirt boy". Hugh's wife and Janie's grandmother, Maybelle, was the postmaster and had a lover, Lee Malone, an African-American who formerly owned the peach orchard, harvesting on land where he was not well received.

When Maybelle suddenly died, the town was propelled into chaos. The orchard was left to her daughter, Tammy. Janie's aunt, Tammy, was a dreamer and had farfetched aspirations to go to Hollywood and become a movie star since she saw her first film. Tammy's desire to clear-cut and sell the beloved peach trees prompted a young Janie to formulate a plan and kidnap her aunt, which caused circumstances to get out of hand and tore the wrong people apart. The messy, eccentric cast of characters seem like normal run-of-the-mill people but have all lived extraordinary lives.

This story has an extremely unique writing style and a vast array of diverse, lovely characters. There is a lot of plot to keep track of. There is quite a bit of jumping around between timeframes and characters within the Treeborne family and key characters outside of the family. I did get confused at times trying to piece everything together. We soar across three generations and become acquainted with each character and feel for them. This story shows us how the past will always come back to the present. Overall, this is a rewarding, magical read and Johnson perfectly captures the rich Southern vernacular.

Many thanks to Picador for my free copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.