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Adam’s Roots
Redemption in ‘The Overstory’
Having discovered his passion for psychology, Adam Appich is a graduate student conducting research.
Musing about the “misguided idealism” of environmentalists, he recalls his own long-ago idealism:
“A boy he knew once jumped into a hole and risked live burial to protect [a] sapling from harm. That boy is dead.” (Richard Powers)
The man he is now says, “I hate activists.”
But he does want to study what drives them. That’s how he finds himself two hundred feet in the air, in the branches of a massive redwood. He’s there to administer questionnaires to Olivia and Nick (aka Maidenhair and Watchman), who have been tree-sitting there for the past ten months.
He is unprepared for how their genuine passion and sincerity intrigue him.
“He knows… these people — the tiny few immune to consensual reality — have a secret he needs to understand.” (Richard Powers)
