If the objects around us could speak, what would they say? Brazilian author Mariana Salomão Carrara explores that question in THE LONELIEST TREE IN THE WORLD, which offers a view of a struggling tobacco farming family through the eyes of a tired, sickly tree, an heirloom mirror, a dependable pickup truck, and a protective spray suit.

This family of five, led by father Carlos and mother Guerlinda, is fighting to eke out a living while dealing with a host of challenges, including an unpredictable climate, the predatory companies that buy their crop, and the effects of pesticide exposure. 

"Through its creative approach to storytelling and unusual form, THE LONELIEST TREE IN THE WORLD shines a sympathetic light on the real-world effects of economic and environmental injustice."

Carlos struggles with depression (“it hurts him to try to be happy,” the tree observes), likely aggravated by the chemicals he must spray on the tobacco. Meanwhile, the exhausted Guerlinda tries to hold things together for their three children: the restless teenager Alice, an aspiring beauty queen who hopes her good looks will be a path to a better life; the precocious preteen Maria, who dreams of using her smarts to solve her family’s financial woes; and the nearly mute toddler Pedro, another possible victim of the farm’s toxic chemicals. 

Carrara’s sensitive, observant novel --- her first to be translated into English, thanks to Alison Entrekin and Julia Sanches --- unfolds in a series of brief vignettes, each told in its narrator’s distinctive voice. The anxious, gloomy tree frets about its poisonous seeds and wishes it could do more to protect the family that it loves so fiercely. Unable to intervene directly, it must satisfy itself with being a record-keeper: “I have a diary… I am in a way a huge role of paper…my thoughts come written on the paper I am,” it says. 

The neutral, appraising mirror reflects each family member’s private moments, attempting to “show them their inconsistencies, but they see something else entirely.” The enthusiastic spray suit, which takes pride in helping to dispense the plants’ “medicine,” is distressed when Alice complains about how hot and uncomfortable it is to wear. The Ford Rural pickup chatters in a folksy manner, fondly remembering the more carefree times when the family had the energy and the means for trips into town. 

When the book opens, the family still has hope that their fortunes will turn around after several years of poor harvests, which has left them deeply in debt. But despite their best efforts, things gradually go from bad to worse. From ill-timed frosts to droughts to pouring rain, nature seems to be conspiring against them. Perhaps it is revenge for the damage humans have done and the way we’ve tried to control plants and animals for our own purposes. “Nature has a bone to pick with humans, one way or another we reject this new God,” the tree says. “When people carefully arrange seeds in the ground, they’re sowing third-rate copies of us.”

As external pressures increase, the family’s bonds stretch and fray. Alicia and Maria’s rivalry mirrors that of Guerlinda and her unseen, estranged sister. Guerlinda’s stoic, funny mother, Elvira, arrives to help the family with the grueling harvest, but even she is quickly overwhelmed. And Carlos retreats further into himself as more calamities pile up, until a final disaster leads to tragedy. 

Through its creative approach to storytelling and unusual form, THE LONELIEST TREE IN THE WORLD shines a sympathetic light on the real-world effects of economic and environmental injustice. In the aftermath of a devastating loss, the tree imagines a network of other farmers coming to the family’s rescue, then quickly brushes that fantasy away. “The scene would only make sense if we were alone in this,” it thinks. “If there weren’t whole forests of devastated families.”