The Tree-Sitter: A Novel [Paperback]

Julie Prince is a top college student, destined for conventional success. But then she falls in love with Neil, a radical graduate student, and abandons her privileged East Coast life to tree-sit in the forests of Oregon. At first it is a romantic field trip; soon, though, Julie finds herself increasingly moved by the magnificence of the endangered forest and, like Neil, invested in its protection. Eventually pulled into a militant act of sabotage, Julie is forced to reassess her deepest held loyalties and beliefs.A passionate and tensely pitched tale of first love and idealism set in the Oregon forests. Incisively explores urgent questions about our abuse of nature. . . . Matson makes a vital connection between personal awakenings and the environmental and political realities with which we all must contend. This story of the all-encompassing blaze of first love and an uneasy eco-activism is surprising and honest. Quietly intense. . . . A timely, thoughtful, morally complex novel.