The debut novel by Owen Thomas, The Lion Trees, chronicles the humorous and dramatic unraveling of an American family. Winner of over a dozen international book awards and enthusiastically received by critics and readers alike.
What happens when you get the life you aim for and it hurts like hell?
The Johns family is unraveling. Hollis, a retired Ohio banker, isolates himself in esoteric hobbies and a dangerous flirtation with a colleague’s daughter. Susan, his wife of forty years, risks everything for a second chance at who she might have become. David, their eldest, thrashes to stay afloat as his teaching career capsizes in a storm of accusations involving a missing student and the legacy of Christopher Columbus. And young Tilly, the black sheep, having traded literary promise for an improbable career as a Hollywood starlet, struggles to define herself amid salacious scandal, the demands of a powerful director, and the judgments of an uncompromising writer.
By turns comical and poignant, the Johns family is tumbling toward the discovery that sometimes you have to let go of your identity to find out who you are.
[A] cerebral page turner…a powerful and promising debut.—Kirkus Reviews
[FIVE STARS] “[A] powerful, gripping and realistic story…The Lion Trees does what so very few great novels can: it will take a lot out of you, but leave you with much more than you had when you began.”—Pacific Book Reviews
[FIVE STARS] “[B]y the time you are done with The Lion Trees, you will have forgotten all about the length and will realize what an amazingly entertaining piece of literature it was and do I dare say it, a serious novel that provides you with some genuine laugh out loud moments. ... The Lion Trees depicts people who can't be slotted as just saints or monsters, they fall somewhere inbetween, just like any of us. Owen Thomas' writing leaves you richer with emotions and contentment even before the ending arrives. [I]f there is only one book that you are going to read this year, make it The Lion Trees.”—Moterwriter.com
Excerpt
It is the nature of a body to succumb to gravity. And so it was with me and my directors. It was a light that they shed, or a vibration that they hummed in their bones without even knowing.
Like so many directors, Blair had a singularity of presence that gleamed and flickered in the dark like a beacon to lost and desperate sailors. Strange that it is the lost and desperate who are most likely to mistake warning for invitation. It is an irony so sick as to make one believe in a psychopathic God. But then, the notion that God has issues in abusing our trust has always been one close to my heart. In the words of Angus Mann, “Trust breeds its own betrayal, even in the heart of God.”
Professional Reviews
Breaking Free [FIVE STARS]
Owen Thomas's new two-volume novel, The Lion Trees, arguably lacks the "increasing economy of expression" that he attributes to the writing of one of his central figures. However, it is precisely the Socratic detail with which he examines the lives of his characters, the leisurely and time-shifting unpeeling of the onion layers of their personalities, that makes these books such a worthwhile pleasure to read. A lesser writer could have set forth declarative statements of existential philosophy with more succinct expression, but only a master novelist can lead his readers to experience the rich contours of his characters' lives and to draw their own conclusions and meanings from them, as Thomas has done in this powerful work.
In a previous review of The Lion Trees, Part One: Unraveling, I wrote about a central theme of identity that was introduced in the first volume. Are we doomed to replay the central elements of our characters over and over again, like an actress playing a part, or perhaps even being recast in the same persona for multiple iterations of a film production? Can we ever escape that wheel of pain by finally getting it right, nailing the role? Is this high Buddhist philosophy or the insightful comedy of Groundhog Day?
In Part Two: Awakening, answers are provided, or at least suggested, and they are, I am pleased to say, hopeful. The story of the lion tree, recounted by a fictional persona played by an actress, is a metaphor that combines survivor guilt, abandonment and the cycle of return. It is emblematic of the lives of Susan, the mother in the dysfunctional Johns family, and Tilly, her daughter. Yet, both are able to break out of the cycle, largely through their own strength.
The son, David, who faces the most yawning chasm of despair of any of the characters, also climbs out of the hole. But he does not accomplish this on his own. He has help, in the form of a character who is a catalyst for his change, almost a deus ex machina for his salvation. This friend is introduced with allusions to the Godfather, but is really more of a fairy godmother, or perhaps a guardian angel along the lines of Henry Travers's Clarence to Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey.
Another catalyst for good, remaining unchanged himself while bringing hope to all the others, is Ben, the younger son, who has Down Syndrome. The purity of Ben's love will not be banished or consumed. He influences all of the other characters, especially his father, Hollis, who eventually remembers a past self and rediscovers why he loved Susan in the first place. Hollis sums up a central theme by asking himself: "What is freedom anyway if not the freedom to start over? Just because you can."
The trials of the Johns family play out against a backdrop of middle America at a time of social and moral crisis, not to mention the physical trauma of Katrina that resembles the knocks on the head suffered by so many of the characters. As the individuals struggle to find the True North of character, they mirror "the war over the identity of this country" as a whole. We can only hope that the nation can break free from the cycle of pain and find its own path to redemption.
See my separate review of Part One of The Lion Trees at Amazon under the review caption, A Roaring Success.
Really a Winner! [FIVE STARS]
With constant urging from a friend, I finally agreed to take on a sizable piece of fiction entitled ”The Lion Trees”. She assured me it was even screenplay-worthy and a book we would enjoy discussing. In her words “This is a winner!”
SO “The Lion Trees” it was, and what a ride it turned out to be! It almost took over my life as I had trouble putting it down. The novel invites you into the personal lives of four members of the Johns family, each in the midst of his and her own private upheaval. But while these individual narratives are separately told, the author has woven them together beautifully to tell a much larger story. Further, Thomas effectively engages the reader into the character and unfolding life story of each family member while expertly and unsuspectingly tying each back to the unbelievable happenings of the others.
Just as I was totally engrossed in the suspense of Hollis Johns, I was thrown into the personal drama going on with Susan, David or Tilly Johns which all contribute powerfully to several common themes that span and bind together the entire book. The character development in “The Lion Trees” makes each character so alive that you feel you want to rush to the phone and offer a “piece of advice” to keep them from falling into the traps you suspect are just around the corner. “YIKES, DON”T GO THERE”! As you read, you are totally drawn into this story.
And yet, “The Lion Trees” is more than just suspenseful. It has the wonderful humor of David in which you find you laugh out loud as his life story explodes in a chaotic and unpredictably entertaining spiral. It is so relatable and warm, you want to read David’s story twice. I suspect every reader will have a favorite. David was mine.
Susan is the one who made me actually stop reading momentarily to think about how she related her life with her family. Her story is told entirely through dialogue and I found her story to be very compelling with some quite unexpected twists and turns. I still think about her. I believe many women her age will be able to relate to her in one way or another. I feel the author’s character development of Susan was written with just enough depth to fuel the reader’s imagination.
The Tilly chapters are told in the first person, retrospectively, as she looks back over decades of an eventful life. She shares the joys and pain of her childhood in Ohio, the sordid saga of her all-too-public experience as a Hollywood starlet, and her reconciliation with her own past as she matures into a fully-realized person.
Each family member’s story is more than a worthwhile reading experience unto itself but since the Johns family is connected in so many memorable ways, these characters are compelling because of how they connect to each other. They are indeed a “family” which is why the reader can so easily relate.
“The Lion Trees” soulful, humorous and meaningful and it has some of the best character development I have read in a while. The story is rich, so very rich in its depth.
I actually tried to find something I didn’t like. I’m sorry but I cannot. When I started I was concerned about the length. This is a big book (two volumes, so make sure you are not purchasing just half the book), but I found myself wishing there was more. Imagine that?
OK, my friend was absolutely correct in pushing me to the point of frustration to take on “the Lion Trees” Thank you friend! I am now open to discussion as you suggested.
Ties that bind us – A review of the novel ‘The Lion Trees’
“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” - John Lennon
As I finished reading the novel which fully deserves that loosely and widely used epithet ‘magnum opus’, I realized that The Lion Trees was much more than what it claims to be and definitely wiser than what I could comprehend in the first reading. And yet, it is those first impressions that matter most of the time and of which I’m about to share with you. As I close my eyes and look back at the book, certain images that my mind crafted while reading this novel comes alive to me in spurts and in solitary, of connecting with another individual, experiencing their angst, their remorse, their resolve, their happiness, their endings. And when I think about it, it sometimes feels like I’m drifting in and out of sleep, recollecting images from a dream that I’ve seen or perhaps one I’m seeing right now but I know they were from a book, from a novel that is as real as fictionalized reality gets or perhaps and funnily enough from pure fiction shot with an absolute dose of honest reality.
Author Owen Thomas’s two part saga on family and the lives of individuals that make up such a social unit form the base for his novel, ‘The Lion Trees’. Juxtaposing with the moral and social environment of America circa 2005, his novel reads as a part impressionistic memoir and part anecdotal account of the lives of five individuals of a family. They are the Johns family; papa Hollis, mom Susan and siblings David and Tilly’s separate narrative intertwines with each other’s and sometimes stays afloat on its own. But the one thing that unites them all is Ben, Hollis and Susan’s third child and the one constant presence in all their lives.
The character of Hollis is of a retired banker, a man of many stories, a man with odd hobbies and a stranger interest in a former colleague’s daughter. Wife Susan, the proverbial caregiver of the family increasingly finds herself contemplating her individual future separate from that of her family; looking for a more meaningful purpose to her existence. So it would be no surprise to state at this point that their marriage has hit a giant roadblock and isn’t going anywhere, a fact that is openly acknowledged by both her adult children. David is the quintessential right guy at all the wrong places, saying and doing all the wrong things. His earnestness and his almost obsessive compulsion to follow a path of righteous integrity lands him trouble more often than not. Ben, the youngest suffers from Down syndrome, is the epitome of love and innocence and a figure that resembles the allegorical home all the four characters return to whenever they go off the track. And then there’s Tilly, the only character who’s narrative transcends the linear nature of the book and we get to see her explore herself and her story in a retrospective manner down the ages from her struggles as an young aspiring starlet to an established and mature woman and actress. The Lion Trees is their story, part one deals with their falls while part two shows their revival, starting their lives afresh.
You take one look at the novel and your impulsively judgemental mind may be excused for jumping the gun and trying to categorize the novel into that of a genre with a dark theme and heavy duty drama and thinking it to be related to its similar American and Russian cousins. But by the time you are done with The Lion Trees, you would have forgotten all about the length and will realize what an amazingly entertaining piece of literature it was and do I dare say it, a serious novel that provides you with some genuine laugh out loud moments.
Owen Thomas is so sure of his writing and the unique and individual voices that he has created for his characters that he doesn’t feel the need to add (a highly distracting) ‘he said’, ‘she said’ after every line of conversation between the characters. The level of detailing is pretty amazing, even the way each character’s immediate environment has been made up to highlight and reflect on their unique personalities has been well thought out. In addition to the novel's principal characters, Owen has given us as a fine array of secondary characters as well. Their back stories and their sub plots will be relatable to most. There are some stand out scenes in the book, worth mentioning are Susan’s political speech, Angus Mann’s diatribe against Hollywood and pretty much all the scenes involving David, especially those of him teaching history to his students, his interrogation scenes and the final courtroom drama. The novel is also filled with great quotable quotes, a true book aficionado’s delight.
The Lion Trees depicts people who can’t be slotted as just saints or monsters, they fall somewhere in between, just like any of us. Owen Thomas’s writing leaves you richer with emotions and contentment even before the ending arrives. And if there is only one book that you are going to read this year, make it The Lion Trees.
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