PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction Best Book (nominee)
National Book Award for Fiction Best Book (nominee)
Eighteen months of the life of Thomas Keene, a fictitious 19th-century congregational minister, is traced in this journal-like novel. Having suffered a loss of faith, Keene abandons the East for frontier life in the Ohio wilderness. His account is by turns violent, tender, and erotic. Keene is both a witness to history, describing the many ordinary and horrific details of frontier life (including the conflict between white settlers and Indians), and a man searching for personal meaning in a world without God. Like a true frontier journal, the novel includes illustrations attributed to Keene. As a foil to the main character, the historic figure John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, is portrayed as a believer who lives with self-doubt.
Genre: Historical
Genre: Historical
Used availability for Hugh Nissenson's The Tree of Life
Hardback Editions
1985 : USA Hardback
August 1986 : USA Hardback
Title: The Tree of Life
Author(s): Hugh Nissenson
ISBN: 1-55504-107-8 / 978-1-55504-107-6 (USA edition)
Publisher: John Curley & Assoc
Availability: Amazon
October 1985 : USA Hardback
Paperback Editions
May 2000 : USA Paperback
September 1991 : UK Paperback
October 1986 : USA Paperback

Title: Tree of Life (Perennial Fiction Library)
Author(s): Hugh Nissenson
ISBN: 0-06-091362-2 / 978-0-06-091362-5 (USA edition)
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Availability: Amazon
Kindle Editions
May 2015 : USA, Australia, Canada, UK Kindle edition