The People in the Trees is the debut novel of Hanya Yanagihara, the New York Times best-selling author of To Paradise (2023) and the 2015 Booker Prize shortlisted novel, A Little Life. Yanagihara is the editor-in-chief of T Magazine and writes fiction in her spare time. Many of her novels include strong themes of isolation and violence and have captivated audiences for over a decade. The People in the Trees, originally published in 2013, is a fictional memoir of Dr. Abraham Norton Perina, who discovers the fictional Selene Syndrome, a disease that mimics immortality. Norton writes his memoir from prison while serving his sentence for the sexual assault of one of his adopted sons. Much of the novel occurs in the fictional Micronesian nation of U’ivu and describes its destruction due to the greed of politically dominant nations known for their exploitative colonial practices.

This guide refers to the First Anchor Books Edition, which was published in May 2014 by Random House.

Content Warning: Both the novel and this guide contain descriptions of graphic scenes of the sexual assault and rape of children, suicide, cultural appropriation, and colonialism.

Plot Summary

The People in the Trees is the fictional memoir of a Nobel Prize-winning virologist named Dr. Abraham Norton Perina, edited by his colleague Dr. Ronald Kubodera. Within the world of the novel, Norton rose to prominence for his discovery of Selene Syndrome, a disease that stops a person from physically aging while simultaneously allowing the mind to deteriorate over time. He makes this earth-shaking discovery among the people of Ivu’ivu, an island of the Micronesian nation of U’ivu. The novel begins with a preface by Kubodera, which is accompanied by news articles revealing that Norton is currently imprisoned after allegations that he sexually assaulted one of his 43 adopted U’ivuan children. Kubodera refutes the allegations and explains that he urged Norton to write his memoirs in order to combat the boredom of prison. As editor, Kubodera collects Norton’s writings and edits them, cutting out parts that he deems to be unflattering or less than useful in describing Norton’s life. 

Norton’s story begins in the Midwest, where he grows up in a small town with a twin brother named Owen. Neither child can cultivate a strong relationship with their aloof mother or lackadaisical father, and Norton receives the most support from his Aunt Sybil. Unfortunately, their mother dies while they are young, and her death, combined with Sybil’s support, inspires Norton to study disease later in life. After the boys go to college, the house falls into disarray and their father refuses to care for it or for himself, resulting in his premature death from a heart attack. Norton briefly returns for the funeral, disappointed at his father’s embarrassing end, before heading to medical school at Harvard.

At Harvard, Norton struggles to fit in, finding his classmates self-absorbed and vapid. He rarely attends class, although he aces each exam, and he soon finds himself employed in Dr. Gregory Smythe’s lab, studying the potential links between viruses and cancer. He finds his superiors to be self-centered and believes himself to be superior because of his pursuit of scientific adventure. When he is invited to dinner with Dr. Smythe, Norton is horrified to discover the man to be a pathetic loner who insists that Norton reminds him of himself. Not wanting to end up like Dr. Smythe at some point in his life, Norton flees the dinner and quits the lab. As graduation approaches, Norton has no plans for a career and is saved by Smythe’s recommendation for him to join a team looking for a lost tribe on U’ivu. Norton agrees to the expedition, excited to pair science and adventure together at last. 

On his way to U’ivu, he meets Paul Tallent, the anthropologist in charge of the expedition, and is stricken by his beauty, cultivating feelings for him immediately. On the island, he meets Esme, the research assistant and close colleague of Tallent. Together, they make their way to the “Forbidden Island” of Ivu’ivu, which is said to be uninhabited. However, their primary guide, Fa’a, hunts there and claims to have seen a group of people who appeared young but mentally absent. Tallent informs Norton that this is the true reason for their expedition: to chase the myth that there are immortals on the island. 

As the group makes their way up the island, Norton encounters a woman with limited physical coordination and no ability to speak. He studies her, ascertaining that she is roughly 60 years old. They name her “Eve” and soon find the rest of her group, whom Norton names the dreamers. All of them seem to have limited memory and recall as well as poor eyesight and limited mobility, almost as if they do not know how to use their bodies. Through interviews with their leader, Mua, and others, Tallent and Esme estimate them all to be over 100 years old. Norton is skeptical of this hypothesis, seeing no conceivable way that a human could live that long.

With the dreamers in tow, the group continues moving up the island, where they stumble on a small village. The villagers permit the research group to settle on the outskirts of the village and observe daily life there, but only if the dreamers stay out of the village. Norton spends his day walking through the village, witnessing the daily activities and the many ceremonies and rituals of the village. He witnesses an a’ina’ina, in which a boy of roughly 10 years old is repeatedly assaulted by the men of the village; Norton is informed that the ritual is meant to teach the boy how to make love. While Norton sees the practice as sensible, Esme detests it. Another ritual the group witnesses is the vaka’ina of the chief. When a member of the village reaches the coveted age of 60, they sacrifice and eat an opa’ivu’eke, which is a turtle endemic to the island. After witnessing the ceremony, Norton understands the state of the dreamers. Through conversation with Mua, the group comes to realize that each one ate an opa’ivu’eke after reaching 60 years of age, and they all now experience incredible longevity. 

However, Norton and the group also come to realize that by eating the turtle, the dreamers doom themselves to mental decay. The villagers call someone with an extended life who loses their mind a mo’o kua’au, and when a person reaches that stage, they are banished from the village, which explains the dreamers’ state of exile. Tallent refuses to let Norton take an opa’ivu’eke with him to study, but Norton is determined. He wakes Mua in the night and has the man lead him to the lake where the turtles live. Norton kills one, hiding it for the journey back. He also convinces Tallent to let them bring four of the dreamers back, and when the group departs, Norton possesses both opa’ivu’eke flesh and dreamers to begin his scientific career.

Norton obtains a lab at Stanford and studies the dreamers, although their new setting marks a steep decline in their mental abilities. He delays his testing of the opa’ivu’eke flesh on mice for a year until he has the proper resources, but when he finally completes his tests, he confirms that the dreamers’ longer lifespans are accompanied by mental deterioration. He keeps the experiment secret from Tallent, but upon publication and replication by another scientist, his secret is made known to the world. Tallent is infuriated by Norton’s deception and the attention it will bring to Ivu’ivu, and even though they make another trip to the island together, their relationship is irreparably damaged. 

When the issue of mental deterioration becomes public, the rush to Ivu’ivu by pharmacological companies is swift. U’ivu is overtaken by the those seeking to profit from its resources, and Norton watches as its culture and customs deteriorate with the arrival of missionaries. When the opa’ivu’eke turtles go extinct, the crowd of opportunistic invaders departs, leaving the islands in a state of ruin. Tallent, disheartened by this, disappears, while Norton commits to making frequent trips to U’ivu, where he begins adopting children at a fast pace. On one such trip, he adopts Victor, the child who will eventually accuse him of sexual assault. 

Victor is a difficult child who requires years of conditioning before becoming sociable. He and Norton frequently fight, but no argument is worse than the one in which a teenage Victor insists on changing his name to Vi. Victor wants to reconnect to U’ivu, accusing Norton of robbing him of his connection to his native culture. Norton, appalled by this accusation, refuses, and insists on calling Victor “Boy.” As Christmas approaches, the conflict intensifies to the point that Victor locks Norton out of the house at night, which Norton views as an attempt to kill him. Norton beats Victor and locks him in the basement for days. After the incident and subsequent punishment, Victor is well-behaved and shows Norton no further resistance until he goes to college. During Victor’s sophomore year, however, Norton is approached by police detectives who question him about Victor’s allegations of assault. 

Norton is placed under house arrest, and his remaining children are taken from him. Realizing that his twin brother was the one to support Victor in his allegations, he feels betrayed, although he does admire the man Victor becomes as he testifies against Norton. Norton is convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. When he is released, Dr. Kubodera picks him up, and the two disappear to an unknown location. Kubodera asserts that it is for the best, and in the “Epilogue” of the autobiography, he reveals the part of the memoir that he excluded. In this section, Norton admits to sexually assaulting Victor many times. Apparently, Victor did not remain well-behaved after the incident and kept making trouble. Norton first assaulted Victor after the teenager broke a crystal bowl. Norton insists that his action was based in love and was therefore not an assault but an act of care. He also admits to doing the same with many of his adopted sons over the years and expresses confusion that they would experience it as anything but an act of passionate love.