Dora Henry is an ordinary woman living in an extraordinary time. Recently seperated from an odd and distant husband, Dora looks back wistfully to when she was a little girl, to the times when the world was a simpler, greener place. But the once-fertile Earth of Dora's childhood has been overdeveloped. Now Nature, apparently, has decided to fight back.

As a police officer, Dora must investigate the bizarre, seemingly unrelated murders of three geneicists. In the course of her inquiry, however, it becomes clear that the scientists were killed by the same person, for reasons that are frustatingly obscure. Meanwhile, strange things are happening everywhere Dora turns; weeds are becoming trees, trees becoming forests, a city is transformed almost overnight into a wild and verdant place inhospitable to what humankind has become.

Within days, Dora's hometown has come to a veritable standstill as the thoroughfares are choked by foliage, and its citizens are forced to employ bygone means of transportation -- walking and talking. But stranger still, Dora disvovers that she herself can somehow communicate with the rampaging flora -- and is, therefore, perhaps the only person presently living who holds the key to averting an unthinkable catastrophy to human life.

As Dora tracks the elusive murderer, the mystery of the trees begins to unravel as well. For the two seemingly disparate events are intertwined, much like the branches of an oak. And, as Dora gets closer to the truth, she comes to realize that the answer she seeks today may lie in the future -- a future which is much closer the anyone dares think.

An inspired, thought-provoking novel of infinite surprise, unrestrained brilliance and mind-blowing imagination, The Family Tree is a tour de force from Sheri S. Tepper, proving once again why she is one of the most highly praised and beloved storytellers writing today.