In his new book, Trent Preszler remembers cutting down a Christmas tree with his father on a snow-drifted South Dakotan prairie. He’s seven or eight years old, yet the memory remains vivid. He recalls that “the young pines stood motionless, waiting to learn which of them would die.” That m oment, quiet and severe, opens “Evergreen: The Trees That Shaped America” from Algonquin Books (Little, Brown and Company), on shelves December 2. It becomes the root system for a sprawling work that examines not just trees, but the nation they helped build. As a professor of practice in the Dyson School at Cornell University and former CEO of Bedell Cellars and chairman of WineAmerica who has an Instagram following of more than 165,000, Preszler spent the past three years exploring his fascination with evergreens — trees that, he argues, mirror America’s own endurance and contradictions. PHOTO PROVIDED. But “Evergreen” isn’t a memoir like his debut, “Little and Often” (2021). It’s an outward-facing book, expansive in scope, tracing how these trees have shaped American history, industry and identity. From the towering redwoods along California’s coast to the neat eight-foot Christmas trees that line rural farms every December, Preszler treats each as both symbol and specimen. Loosely inspired by Maxine Bédat’s “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment,” which follows a pair of jeans from Texas cotton fields to factories overseas, Preszler homes in on wood as America’s first infrastructure — the evergreen as both material and metaphor. “Wood from evergreen conifers is what built this country, and what builds a lot of people’s homes,” he said. “But evergreens also have this wonderful cultural significance at Christmas. I became fascinated by that connection; how something so utilitarian and structural can also be spiritual and sacred and part of so many people’s lives, cultures and memories of childhood.” In 2022, Preszler set out across 20 states, visiting Christmas tree farms, lumber mills and plywood factories. The trip became a kind of pilgrimage, equal parts fieldwork and meditation on growth and loss. Along the way, he encountered the contradictions of the nation’s forestry story: the ingenuity, the waste and the yearning to reclaim what’s been lost.  “There are chapters about the giant sequoias and redwoods in California,” he said, “and the almost fanatical and tragic decimation of those trees in the late 1800s and early 1900s — how gleefully America destroyed one of our most precious natural resources.” But amid that devastation, Preszler also uncovered tender, unexpected stories. In archival photos from Stanford University Libraries, he noticed pairs of lumberjacks standing hand-in-hand.  PHOTO PROVIDED. “It turns out much of the timber-cutting workforce in that era were basically closeted, down-low gay men,” he said.  For Preszler, discovering that hidden lineage carried deep personal meaning. As a gay man, he was profoundly moved to find his identity stamped in the historical record.  Though “Evergreen” lingers on the beauty of the trees themselves, Preszler doesn’t shy away from their shadows. He writes about the devastation of wildfires (evergreen sap is rich with flammable turpentine), the relentless spread of bark beetle infestations and the uneasy future of the artificial Christmas tree — plastic, convenient and destined for the landfill. He even plays with the irony of the title itself.  “In a roundabout way, evergreens are not really evergreen,” he said. “We’re losing them, and they may not be here for future generations.”  Fake trees, he notes, don’t escape that paradox.  “Even when people buy a plastic tree, they still throw it away eventually,” he said. Tyler Stone, owner of BTN of Oregon, a 2,700-acre Christmas tree farm in Salem, helped Preszler understand the role of the modern-day Christmas tree.  “I give lots of farm tours to buyers,” Stone said. “But giving Trent a tour was different. He’s passionate about the whole 10-year process of growing a real Christmas tree, not just the finished product. Tree farming is not for the faint of heart. Each tree is hand-pruned every year to give it that ‘perfect’ Christmas tree look. Knowing that we’re growing something so many families gather around at Christmas makes all the hard work worth it.” In this way, the book closes with a sense of resilience and renewal. Preszler highlights Indigenous-led reforestation projects reclaiming burned and blighted land, framing them as acts of both ecological recovery and spiritual repair. Then, in the final pages, he returns to the ritual that began his story: searching once again for a Christmas tree. This time, the act carries new meaning — a gesture of continuity, care and gratitude for what endures. Back in the Finger Lakes, Preszler lives on an acre lush with life. A botanist at heart, he’s planted nearly 500 trees — dwarf conifers, Japanese maples and ginkgos — and tends a basement greenhouse filled with weird and exotic houseplants. This is his happy place. It helps that the environment he’s cultivated on his doorstep inspires his work too.  “A lot of my thoughts about writing come when I’m gardening,” he said. “My mind races, so when I have an idea for a line or a chapter, I’ll come running inside with mud on my boots, sit down and start writing. The garden helps me focus.” For Preszler, tending to trees or sentences is all part of the same act: nurturing something meant to last, even when nothing truly ever does. After the emotional weight of his debut, writing “Evergreen” felt restorative.  “My first book was painful, personal and sad,” he said. “But ‘Evergreen’ was a pleasure.”  The post The search for truth among America’s trees appeared first on CITY Magazine. Arts. Music. Culture.. ...read more read less