New Book Spotlight

The First Thousand Trees

A mini-interview with Premee Mohamed

Tell us about your new book?

THE FIRST THOUSAND TREES is the third book in the trilogy that began in 2021 with THE ANNUAL MIGRATION OF CLOUDS — a story set in post-post-climate disaster Alberta, following lifelong friends Reid and Henryk as they navigate growing up and deciding whether to leave home, or stay and rebuild. The first two books were narrated by Reid; the final book is Henryk’s, taking the reader with him as he heads North to try to find work in his uncle’s village of Sprucedown. But life is much harder outside of the cities, and if his new community doesn’t accept him, it will be more than his own future at stake.

What aspect of the book was the most fun to write?

Definitely the relationship between Henryk and Dane, the cousin he never knew he had — I feel like in the first book, because no one had really ever left their community, there was no novelty to explore in anyone’s friendships and no tension to dig into there. But now, almost for the first time in his life, Henryk has to figure out how to befriend, or at least work with, someone who is completely new, someone who doesn’t know his history, his personality, his traumas, any of that. Henryk feels indebted; Dane feels threatened. They’re both doing a little bit of sparring and feinting as the book goes on. That was hard for me to write — but a lot of fun.

If there is one emotion or theme that you would hope that the reader connects with, what would that be?

I hope it would be the idea of persistence, or maybe resilience… the idea that you can work as hard as you’re able to, that you can try to out-think, out-fight, out-maneuver so many things in your life, and you still might not ‘win.’ But that doesn’t mean it’s a loss. It means there’s one option left, and that is to outlast. If you survive just one more day, that means you get to try again.