First published in Great Britain in 2023; published by ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 7, 2023

Is there something subversive about planting vegetables on property owned by other people? Birnam Wood is an anti-capitalist cooperative in New Zealand, a “grassroots community initiative” to plant “sustainable organic gardens in neglected spaces” while fostering “a commitment to help those in need.” Some of the planting is done openly. Other times it is clandestine. I’m not sure most people would care if “guerilla plantings” resulted in vegetables growing alongside highway off ramps or in junkyards. As social change organizations go, Birnam Wood is even more of a yawner than most. Still, the plant activists seem to have righteous intentions, so good on them.

Mira Bunting has spent many “lost years” working with Birnam Wood, perhaps in the hope that she will demonstrate organizational skills that might appeal to an employer. Shelley Noakes is a more natural manager but she is tired of the group’s “suffocating moral censure.” She would like to get out or Birnam Wood. More importantly, she would like to get out of her relationship with Mira, who fails to treat her with the love and respect that Shelley believes to be her due.

Mira is planting secret vegetables on land near a National Park owned by Owen Darvish when she spots a small airplane on a private landing strip. The pilot is Robert Lemoine, a billionaire who made a fortune from drones. Lemoine explains to Mira that he’s buying the land from Darvish so he can install a survivalist bunker in which he can wait out whatever environmental catastrophe will first arrive. Mira justifies her trespass by telling Lemoine about Birnam Wood. He seems taken with the idea, or perhaps with Mira, and agrees to provide preliminary funding so that the organization can expand. The reader soon learns of Lemoine's hidden agenda.

A founding member who has been traveling, Tony Gallo, makes an unexpected appearance at the latest Birnam Wood meeting. Tony once had a thing with Mira. Tony doesn’t get along with Shelley. He’s “increasingly at odds with the prevailing orthodoxies of the contemporary feminist left, which seemed to him to have abandoned the worthy goal of equality between the sexes in pursuit of either naked self-interest or revenge.” Tony was doing personal journalism until he was accused of writing an essay that amounted to poverty tourism and revealed his white privilege. Now Tony is looking for a way back into journalism without becoming an actual journalist. To do that, he needs to do the kind of investigative reporting that will reinforce his progressive credentials.

Mira presents Lemoine's funding offer at the meeting while carefully refraining from endorsing the billionaire or the capitalism he represents. Tony opposes Mira’s proposal to accept dirty money from Lemoine. The other members are swayed by the promise of a cash infusion for their precarious organization. Tony walks away from Birnam Wood but senses an opportunity to showcase his chops as an investigative journalist. Tony reasons that a billionaire who throws money at a leftist group must be up to something. Tony’s instincts are sound. He discovers that Lemoine is involved in a secret project that will get him into big trouble if he’s exposed.

The plot hinges on the project’s secrecy. Lemoine is doing something on a significant scale in a national forest. Doesn’t anyone in New Zealand enter its national forests? It’s difficult to believe that Lemoine’s scheme would have even a remote chance of operating undetected, but I don’t know enough about New Zealand to be sure of that. The story develops some suspenseful moments as Tony hides in the woods, evading drones and capture as he gathers evidence of Lemoine’s operation, but suspense remains low-key for most of the story.

I can’t agree with the novel’s billing as a literary thriller. It is literary in the sense of being well written, with ample attention to character development, although the literary nature of the prose creates a pace that is inconsistent with a thriller. I wouldn’t want to accuse Eleanor Catton of writing run-on sentences, but readers might want to put on comfortable shoes before walking from the beginning to the end of her paragraphs. I have little patience with thriller writers who manufacture “page turners” by putting few words on a page, but Catton goes too far in the opposite direction. She rivals Henry James in her ability to create a scene by describing every single object in sight, including (in Catton’s case) the varieties of spinach and beets and cabbages and cauliflowers and leeks and carrots (and on and on) planted by Birnam Wood.

The novel’s most promising moments come during an argument at a Birnam Wood meeting about the nature of political and economic change and the ineffectual, scolding approach taken by some members of the left. The novel spotlights the in-fighting that make many organizations, and particularly groups comprised of progressive volunteers, completely dysfunctional. "Im pure in my ideals and everyone else is a sellout" isn't the kind of attitude that assures the planting of subversive cabbage patches.

Yet the novel bogs down with conflicts between Mira and Shelley, both of whom seem to develop a thing for Lemoine for reasons that are less than obvious. Chalk it up to billionaire charm, I suppose. The novel is contaminated by sentences like “She wished she could tell her friend the honest truth, which was not that she loved her because she needed her, but that she needed her because she loved her, and in her monumental stupidity and self-absorption, she had only just figured that out.” Self-absorption infects all the speaking characters, but that makes them more annoying than interesting.

I give Birnam Wood high marks for an original if not entirely convincing plot. The final pages are over the top. Perhaps those pages reflect a literary determination to eschew happy or predictable endings, but it is predictable for that very reason. Despite the novel’s flaws, including its pace and disagreeable characters, my inability to guess what might happen next kept me reading with full attention.

RECOMMENDED

What a wild and fun read and a blistering and crazy look at the evils of capitalism. This thriller is a twisty interesting read about an Eco-activist group in New Zealand that becomes entangled with a wealthy American.
The writing is taught and the storytelling is fast and furiously engaging.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and thank netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my review.

I honestly don't even remember requesting this book, but it was on my dashboard so I read it.
Birnam Wood is a strange combination of a little (too much) Ayn Rand, but if she was a SJW, a dash (too light) of Barbara Kingsolver, and a generous sprinkle of Tom Clancy. Then, THEN, it turns to full on Ruth Ware-Paula Hawkins-Gillian Flynn territory.
Does that sound painful? It was, and way too long. I found myself skimming multiple pages at a time of navel-gazing monologues that made me want to DNF but other reviews insisted the book picked up, so I soldiered on.
ARC has 3 large chapters with indiscernible breaks between character/scene shifts. Could easily be broken down into chapters within the 3 sections to make it easier to decipher and less confusing. Not sure if this is corrected in final published version.
The book is set in New Zealand but the author's note says the places mentioned are all invented. Overall, just too much in one book that could have been a much slimmer volume.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It started off really slow, but then it picked up. The ending was not what I expected.

I was challenged to finish reading Birnam Wood and still don't know what to make of it. It was a little slow for me and extremely detailed in a way that did not bring me joy. I found it difficult to connect with any of the characters. I'll leave this review here and you can decide if this will be your next read.

**I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Who would have thought, after her first two novels (both of which I also unabashedly gave 5-star reviews), that youngest Booker-winner Catton would suddenly go all Tarantino on our asses? But after a 10-year bout of writer's block, Catton has come roaring back to life with what MGHT be her best novel yet. I had a bit of unease in the first 10% of this, since I found it hard to retain much of the exposition - but soon afterwards, the novel shifted into 1st gear and didn't let up till the unexpected and bloody great conclusion.

My only other minor quibble is that delicious arch villain Robert Lemoine so dominates the novel, that the other three major characters - Mira, Tony and Shelley - collectively don't even hold a candle to his dominating presence. Still, this novel does everything I want literary fiction to do ... and does it effortlessly. I fully expect to see this on the 2023 Booker longlist - and wouldn't be surprised if Catton became the youngest double winner in Booker history.

I'm conflicted about this book. On the one hand, the first 65% bored me. It seemed to be all dialogue of boorish men mansplaining and philosophizing. I almost gave up so many times and it took me forever to get through. At 65% something big happens and the story took off! It was suspenseful and action packed. I couldn't put it down! Then I got to the end, and the ending was infuriating! I wanted to toss the book across the room! (I have a kindle so I would never!) I was so angry at the ending that I was mad at myself for not quitting the book and pushing through to the end. It just wasn't worth it! I felt it ended just when things were getting really good and it left the fates of some characters up in the air. I don't usually mind an ambiguous ending that doesn't wrap up all the threads but after suffering through most of this rather long book I was disappointed and absolutely livid! our experience may vary from mine and I hope it is more satisfying for you. For me this was just painful and fell short.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

I tried to like Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries. On paper the story seemed so big and intriguing but it was so complicated and I felt like I didn't really feel all of the threads of the plot weave together at the end. I was unsure if Birnam Wood would be more of the same but it couldn't be more different. Where The Luminaries had multiple timelines and perspectives, a cast of characters rivaling a high fantasy series, and lots of red herrings, Birnam Wood is scaled down, has only a handful of characters and tells its story more or less in linear, chronological fashion.

Birnam Wood has the feel of many contemporary fiction writers who happen to be millenials. Meditating on political ideals, usually left leaning, and exploring the existential crises of our time while serving up a compulsive plot.

I think Catton manages to present all of the characters in nuanced perspective. Sometimes a extreme political bent in a character reads as propagandized trope but I felt like the complexity of Mira, Tony, and Robert's worldviews read as authentic.

A fun read for anyone who is a fan of character driven thrillers.

I have trouble remembering why I was so excited about Catton’s third novel that I put it on my Most Anticipated list for 2023, especially given my decidedly mixed feelings about The Luminaries (my most popular Goodreads review of all time!). I’d read a lot about Birnam Wood so its plot held no surprises for me. An American tech billionaire is up to no good on a New Zealand nature reserve; though the members of a guerrilla gardening group summon courage to fight back, his drones see all.

From early on I had little interest in the cast and their doings, especially the buzzword-filled dialogues, and skimmed the rest. Literary fiction usually distinguishes itself from commercial genre fiction by its focus on character depth (and prose quality), but in Catton’s case that was achieved through endless backstory. Her attempt at edginess entails adding at least one F-word to each spoken sentence. I’d heard that the ending was a knockout, so I skipped ahead and did find the last 40 pages gripping and the gruesome final tableau worthy of the Shakespearean allusions, but there’s a lot of blah to wade through before that.

This felt like I was reading a book at a rapid pace, even if it was quite dense and very layered. I was not familiar with the author previously but will definitely be on the lookout for more and also go back and read The Luminaries. This wasnt always an easy read (like I said fast paced in terms of writing but did need a breather here and to here) but worth it. 3 stars.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Strous and Giroux for the ARC of this book.

Wow! I haven't read The Luminaries yet but Eleanor Catton, but if it's anything like this book, I better get my thinking cap on.

First off, great idea! Secondly, if you get through the beginning, and trust me it's hard but not in a boring way, you'll wind up finishing this book but not where it started.

Is this book blurbed as a crime story? Someone told me not to read the blurb going into it because they didn't think I'd like it. I did like it.

This group who are anarchists, speechy, do criminal things..sometimes and collectively gardeners plant things all around. Every space that they think is not being used for the greater good. Even if that space is on private property, and they abhor how the rich don't use every resource on their acres so they plant everywhere they can. When natural disaster strikes, a landslide it closes off farmland that's abandoned.Now they have a place to stay and grow, but they are running out of money.

Than, American billionaire buys the land to build a bunker for HIS end of the world plans and when he catches Mira snooping, well all sorts of things happen. I love when Catton throws a wrench in plans and she does so often.

I loved how sCatton portrayed the characters, Every facet of them. Mira and Shelley's growing grudge also kept me going. The tension could be cut by a knife.

I really liked this book even though yes the prose was long, and now i want to read The Luminaries. 3.8 stars rounded to a 4. I recommend this book with a good dose of patience!. I will say stick with it, you may just like it.

Birnam Wood is a collective, one of those groups where all decisions are voted on and the chair of meetings rotates around the membership, at least half of whom are vegan. But really Mira is the driving force. This guerrilla gardening collective is her idea and it's her energy that drives in on. Shelley is the one who does all the administrative tasks and makes Mira's ideas work. But it's never been self-sustaining and now Shelley wants to leave. She hasn't told Mira yet, but Mira can see the cracks as well as anyone. And then Mira finds a perfect place to do some larger scale gardening and there's even a billionaire there who is talking about funding them in a way that could really get the project from a volunteer project to a viable concern. Of course, this means trusting the kind of person Mira had always considered the enemy and hiding a few details from the rest of [Birnam Wood], but this is far too good an opportunity to turn down, isn't it?

Eleanor Catton's book is one that begins as a character study of a diverse array of stock characters, to a sort of eco-thriller in its final third. Does it work as a novel? Yes and also I expected more from Catton, a superlatively gifted writer who gave us both the unsettling The Rehersal and the expansive and intricate The Luminaries. I do like what Catton attempted here, with all the many characters going in their many directions and the way she is poking gentle fun at the dynamics of groups and left-leaning individuals, and less gentle fun at the wealthy. Her plot was improbable, but she wrote it so well that I was able to go with it. It was ham-fisted at times, but within acceptable limits. Which is to say, had the author been anyone else, I would have had a more favorable opinion of it, but is it fair to hold Catton to a higher standard when even a great author is going to have less-than-great books? After all, I honestly enjoyed this novel.

The first few chapters into the book I didn’t know if I would like it. As each character developed, I became more engaged. Overall, a decent plot. I was extremely disconcerted and frustrated with the ending. I can’t say more without spoiling things. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

“Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton is a literary thriller set in a gardening collective in New Zealand. The story involves two young idealistic young women who unfortunately get tangled up with an eccentric billionaire up to no good. It was a slow burn, but extremely well written book. I really enjoyed the writing.

An interesting cast of characters: anarchist rebel gardeners, an uber wealthy gazillionaire with zero scruples, and a recently knighted social climber and his lady wife. They all collide in this unpredictable narrative set in New Zealand.

A recent landslide has isolated the wilderness where the story takes place, allowing the plot to take off into absurd-land. But with our aforementioned gazillionaire's dollars (he's American, of course), anything is possible.

Catton examines all sides of her characters. They are fully realized, the good and the bad. The book is serious (we're looking at the intersections of environmental stewardship, ecological disaster and obscene wealth) but funny. Some of the scenes are just berserk. Catton maintains this balance through to the very last page.

My thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC.

I loved The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, with its Victorian pastiche and painstakingly plotted mystery. While Birnam Wood is brilliantly written, the plot never really grabbed me and held my attention the way a thriller should.

The beginning of BW is an overwhelming barrage of information — characters’ opinions, pasts, and motivations all given in rapid concession. While Catton is great at giving readers an in-depth look at the psych of her characters, it felt like too much right off the bat. Despite the rapid fire of information, the beginning/middle of the book is very slow plot-wise. The story does not really get moving until about 75% in.

I did appreciate the backstory later in the novel because this book mirrors Macbeth beautifully in that all of the character's wants and desires (their fatal flaw) end up culminating in a very bloody, traumatic end for all involved. I didn’t have an issue with the ending, but I would have loved more tie-in/connection back to the larger themes of the book.

I also loved the in-depth look at the cultural and political life of New Zealand. However, I did have to do a lot of googling to really understand the connections Catton was making, which took me out of the story and felt a little tedious at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Status and Giroux for the eARC.

I found this book extremely slow to start. There was so much backstory that I almost gave up on it, but the pace definitely picked up after the first section. Once the story got established, I did find it intriguing and was anxious to figure out the mysterious circumstances.

Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is a must-read novel for all who like intellectual thrillers and unexpected endings. Catton provides just enough hints of the intense thriller to come as she takes readers through background material early in the book. Although I was initially surprised by long, seeming digressions into character’s thoughts, I soon began to appreciate the insights into the main characters—their backgrounds, their ways of thinking, their history with Birnam Wood, and the history of their relationships with one another. I was especially struck by Catton’s effective contrast between the flowing background sentences with which she introduced the characters’ thoughts and the frequently halting, colloquial dialogue that mirrors the way people often speak.

Mira Bunting founded Birnam Wood, a gardening collective that grows herbs and vegetables wherever it can find free space. Shelley Noakes, a long-term volunteer, wants to leave. Tony Gallo, a former member, has returned to New Zealand after several years in Mexico. Each of them has secrets, Each makes wrong assumptions influencing his or her thinking and behavior.

Birnam Wood is in danger of financial collapse if it can’t find a way to grow more crops to sell. An opportunity arises when an earthquake causes landslides that close roads and largely cut off a large farm abandoned by its owner, Owen Darvish, due to the landslides. What if Birnam made use of that privately owned land sure to be abandoned for months if not years until roads are cleared and repaired? As Mira travels to check it out the Korowai farm site, she discovers Robert Lemoine on the land. A self-declared survivalist and owner of Autonomo, a drone manufacturer, Lemoine is in the process of buying Darvish’s land to build a luxury bunker, or so he says.

Mira takes up Lemoine’s offer to show him what Birnam Wood can do, and she recruits a group of volunteers eager to camp on the land, grow crops on a larger scale, and make Birnam Wood solvent, maybe even successful. However, nothing is quite what it seems to the characters and to the reader. Strange things are happening on the farm in in neighboring Korowai National Park. Suspense is building.

Catton divides the novel into three numbered parts, the first ending with the tense meeting in which Birnam Wood eventually votes to take on the new project and the second with a shocking moment leading into the increasingly suspenseful third. By the time you reach the final part, prepare to stay up until you have finished the book. On the other hand, perhaps it's better not to read the ending before bed. As I did, you might have a sleepless night.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux for an advance reader copy of this suspenseful new novel by Eleanor Catton, Booker Prize winning author of The Luminaries.

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Thank you to FSG and NetGalley for the ARC!

The Luminaries is one of my favorite books of all time and I was very excited to see that Elanor Catton wrote another book. This one is very unique about murder, money, guerrilla gardening, living off of the land and more. I loved every minute of it!

I wasn’t prepared for Birnam Wood, for its pure entertainment and delightfully mean-spirited snipes. I couldn’t put this book down and kept coming back to it whenever I had a moment. I wanted not only to find out what happened but also enjoyed the many different conversations characters had about big themes like purpose, activism, social responsibility, economics, privilege, etc.

And it all ends with a memorable ending that will definitely create lots of discussion. I will be pushing to read this one for book club!

A gorgeously written novel, with all of the ambitious plotwork one expects of Catton. What stands out most is how sharply observant Birnam Wood is -- of our most human contradicts, desires, and entanglements. Catton is a deft mimic of contemporary political archetypes, imbuing each with an arresting realism. A timely page-turner.