Reflections Of Quercus Treen
- Andy Bracken
- Jun 1, 2015
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 7
This is Andy Bracken's debut novel about an oak tree who tells his story about the people he has encountered in his two centuries of life, and how they've played a role in shaping him, perhaps as much as the elements have.
Treen has a sense of humour, but it's inevitable that there would be happy and sad moments in a life spanning any length of time, especially given that he has lived through an industrial revolution, two world wars, and the seventies!
This edition is no longer available. However, there is a revised edition that has a short story to go with the tall tale! The links to Amazon below will direct you to the revised edition.
Author Notes
It was my first published novel in 2015. I was learning, and it’s flawed, but I love the concept. An oak tree who tells ‘his’ story, as he recalls the people who visited him over centuries. It was also when I began to develop my own voice, and put the setting together, as I built my own fictitious county. Brakeshire is my version of George Eliot’s Loamshire, or Hardy’s Wessex.
The book germinated, as I walked my dog every morning and evening for a year. He was just a puppy. We barely missed a day. That would have been Spring 2013 to Spring 2014. And as we walked, I watched the oak trees go through their full cycle. By the end, I had the book in my head.
I remember, as well, at that time, I was re-reading a lot of books I’d read as a child. Edith Nesbit, in particular. I did ‘borrow’ a line from ‘The Railway Children’! Not that ‘Treen’ is a children’s book, I hasten to add.
In early-2019, I slightly edited the tale, and added a short story, ‘Meek’, to the end. The edits were mostly geographical, as the landscape in Brakeshire had developed.
Just last week, I had a curry with a mate on Tuesday evening, and lunch with a lady on Wednesday. Both informed me that ‘Treen’ is their favourite of all my novels.
For more information, please see the 2019 entry, as this version is long out of print.
‘Treen’ is a book I believe I’ll never delete. I may tweak it again, at some point. Improve the writing a little…
Meh, maybe not. It doesn’t do any harm to show development, I think.
Reviews
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A very human oak tree
"...This book is a wonderful portrait of human and human feelings and behaviors from the privileged point of view of an oak tree that, with time, managed to understand human words, human gestures and human attitudes and feelings. Good and bad. It's such a fascinating read. We get to see the Victorian era, the psychedelic era, the Wars era, all from the wise perspective of a tree with very noble human feelings. And, as always, the fascinating characters that are always part of Andy Bracken's books are here, always unpredictable and fascinating. This book may really change something in a reader's mind. It's that good. Apart from the main story, there's a lovely book about a dog, also with an intriguing but very true perspective on human behaviors."
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