PositiveThe Chicago Review of BooksAlison’s book is like a cold shower to ward off the standard narrative arc and rewire our mental circuitry to see the patterns of nature in the structure of novels ... This is a playful and exciting book that opens up all sorts of new possibilities for narrative arcs.
Lauren E. Oakes
PositiveScience MagazineIn Search of the Canary Tree begins in 2010, with Oakes searching for a topic for her Ph.D. research in Alaska. She interviews local scientists, forest service employees, and park rangers about their research and how she might be able to contribute ... Oakes has few preconceptions about where her research will lead and is willing to be surprised. She’s surprised by what she finds in her ecological studies of yellow-cedar stands and by what she learns from the people she interviews. True, there is an attendant grief, given the grim nature of her research, but there is also hope for the future.
