“The Overstory” by Richard Powers (post 2): Trees call on characters to protect them, and characters reflect author’s multiple personality

In the previous post, the author, quoted from a published interview about this novel, said that he enjoyed the writing process, because it unleashed his “multiple personalities.”

One-third into the novel, two characters have had symptoms reflective of the author’s multiple personality.

Of Patricia Westerford, a tree biologist, it is said (note italics in the original): “Something stops her. Signals flood her muscles, finer than any words. Not this. Come with. Fear nothing” (1, p. 128). As discussed in past posts on italics (search “italics”), their use here indicates communication from an alternate personality.

Olivia Vandergriff, a college student, who has recently recovered from a brief cardiac arrest, starts to experience communication from “presences”:

“There, the presences—the only thing to call them—removed her blinders and let her look through…Something’s watching—huge, living sentinels know who she is…She will do whatever they ask…They speak no words out loud…They’re part of her, kin in some way…You were worthless, they hum. But now you’re not. You have been spared from death to do a most important thing…Disembodied entities from the far side of death make themselves known, here, now…” (1, pp. 158-163).

Of course, within the context of the story, these communications from alternate personalities are meant to be interpreted by the reader as coming from trees, whom the characters are being called to protect.

1. Richard Powers. The Overstory. New York, W. W. Norton, 2018.