The Overstory

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of violence, specifically police brutality, as well as discussions of ableism and suicide.

A woman in a park leans against a pine tree. She feels the expanse of the natural world around her, as “something in the air’s scent commands the woman” (7) to think about willow. Humans do not comprehend the extent and the depth of the life around them. The woman is told to listen to the world around her as there is something that she needs to hear. 

In the 1800s, people in Prospect Hill, Brooklyn, throw stones at chestnut trees and gather the nuts that fall. A Norwegian named Jørgen Hoel eats the gathered chestnuts with his friends. That night, Jørgen proposes to Vi Powys, and they become Americans together, moving to Iowa to be farmers. Vi becomes pregnant, and Jørgen plants six of the chestnuts that he gathered on the day he proposed. He nurtures the seedlings.

Their first child dies in infancy. Soon, however, they have many children and “the hint of a chestnut grove” (12), which provides traditional medicines for the family. The farm and the family expand; eventually, there is one tree left, the others killed by lighting and drought.