“I am losing myself. Like a piece of fruit that’s been left out too long, my face is wrinkling and surrendering its shape to the laws of gravity . . . I don’t like my clothes, I don’t like my face.”

These self-destructive opening thoughts set the stage for Tree Fever’s fictional heroine to transform from one of life’s aging bystanders into a youthfully invigorated activist. Jesse Dearborn James is a mother and respected psychotherapist from a small Canadian town. She fears her mortality, has a strained relationship with her daughter, and feels that she lacks conviction. All this begins to change when Jesse rebelliously steps between a chainsaw and her favorite trees. The story chronicles Jesse’s fight to save the trees and her eventual acceptance of mortality as a beautiful part of the life cycle.

Ironically, Tree Fever’s strength is not in its ecological messages. Jesse insists that she is not an extremist, but she makes constant comparisons that equate logging with genocide and rape. Moreover, at the crescendo of the story, only moments after her daughter reveals to her a devastating personal secret, Jesse leaves her traumatized daughter behind in order to urgently attend to her trees. The writer attempts to convey an ecological philosophy akin to Rousseau’s Natural Pantheism, but falls short because of her advancement of trees at the expense of the rest of the ecological landscape.

However, the book is successful in its celebration of older women and the strength and wisdom they bring to the world. Almost all of Tree Fever’s major characters are smart, engaging, and admirable grandmothers. The plot threads are carefully resolved to weave a satisfyingly self-contained novel that makes a positive statement about aging. Readers may come away with a renewed sense of respect for the power of older women.