Best of Ten!
Greenwood starts with an image of the cross-section of a tree trunk, this showing the novel’s structure. The novel begins in 2038, the outer ring of the tree, and visits four different years in the past, the center being 1908. Then it returns through each of those years to 2038.
In 2038, Jake Greenwood is an overqualified scientist working as a forest ranger in one of the few forests left on earth after the Great Wilt. She is glad to have the job in a world of excessively rich people and have-nots. Greenwood Island is a sort of private park that entertains the very wealthy by touring them through the forest.
Jake doesn’t think her family has a connection with the Greenwoods of the island, once owned by the fabulously wealthy lumber baron Harris Greenwood, but a lawyer arrives saying that she may have a claim to the island.
The novel returns back in time to visit Jake’s ancestors at important events in their lives. In 2008, Jake’s father Liam’s girlfriend leaves him and then lets him know she is pregnant. Later, doing a carpentry job, he has a serious accident.
In 1974, Liam’s mother Willow, an environmental activist, lives with Liam in her van and travels around sabotaging logging equipment.
In 1934, Everett, who makes a little money tapping and selling maple syrup, finds a baby hanging on a tree outside his cabin. Although he at first tries to give her away, he begins to think she’s in danger.
In 1908, two nine-year-old boys are the only survivors of a massive train wreck. When no one claims them, the town puts them in a cabin and provides the bare minimum of their needs, the boys growing up almost feral. The boys cannot remember their names, so the town calls them Harris and Everett Greenwood.
The novel is beautifully written and like The Overstory is concerned with trees and their impact on the world. Its descriptions of forests are lyrical. The plot itself is at times so involving as to read almost like a thriller. This is an unusual and absorbing novel.
whatmeread 
I was sad this was taken off our LW list, because I really want to read it. I still will, of course, but it’s nice to have that extra nudge to pick something up. I’m happy to see you liked it so much!
I did like it, but it isn’t in any way about couples.