1. Greenwood is part of a new genre of novels known as
CliFi (climate fiction). What makes it fall under that category? Do any
of the novel’s environmental themes resonate with you?
2. At its heart, Greenwood is a family saga. How did the boyhoods
of brothers Everett and Harris make them into the men they became? How
do you think Willow’s nomadic life affected her son Liam? How did Jake’s
orphaning influence the person she became?
3. The Great Withering began with the trees—“the wave of fungal blights
and insect infestations, to which old growth was particularly
defenseless.” What environmental stresses do you see in your life today?
How do you personally address these issues?
4. “The best sacrifices, Willow knows, are always made in solitude, with
not a camera in sight.” Characters make many sacrifices in
Greenwood—Everett for his brother during the war, Temple for the
downtrodden, Feeney out of love for his principles. What other
sacrifices did you notice in the novel? Which character’s sacrifice
moved you most and why?
5. How did you feel about Meena’s reaction to Liam’s painstakingly
created gift, a homemade viola that replicated the Stradivarius Meena so
loved? Were her actions necessary? Cruel? What did her reaction say
about their relationship?
6. The word “roots” has many meanings in Greenwood—a tree’s
stability, a family’s ancestry, a person’s connection to place. Which
meaning resonated most with you and why?
7. “Time, Liam has learned, is not an arrow.” Greenwood travels back and
forth through time—deepening characters and their backstories,
connecting characters in unforeseen ways, twisting the plot like roots.
In fact, the book’s timeline, starting and ending with the most recent
years, and with the earliest events tucked into the middle, is
structured like the rings of a tree. How did this structure affect your
reading experience? How would the reading experience have changed if the
story was told linearly?
8. Why do you think author Michael Christie chose to write the center
section—1908—in the voice of a Greek chorus of townspeople? How does
this perspective enhance our understanding of the Greenwood boys’
upbringing?
9. Christie writes that nature has taught Temple “things she’d never
speak in polite conversation. Like the fact that Mother Nature’s true
aim is to convert us people back into the dust we came from, just as
quick as possible.” Like Temple, people tend to view Mother Nature as
either the great destroyer (earthquakes, floods, the Dust Bowl), or the
great nurturer (providing food, shelter, oxygen, and more). Which view
did each character take? Which do you lean toward? Do you think both can
be true? Why or why not?
10. What do you think of Jake’s final actions at the end of the book?
Did she make the right decisions? How would you have handled the
revelations?