Anna Davison Keller is 112 years old. Anna isn't the typical centurionΒΈ most who survive to live to their hundreds are frail, infirm, and have difficulty with memory. Anna is hale, hearty and her mind is sharp as a tack. Anna lives in the same home from her childhood on an olive grove in the Sacramento Valley. Anna lives with her daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter who is expecting her own child. Five generations of Kellers under one roof. Anna's granddaughter Callie is obsessed with finding out why the Keller women live such long healthy lives.
Callie has contacted a scientist Dr. Hashmi who would like to study the Keller women as part of his super centurion study. Dr. Hashmi believes there is something in the root of their DNA that predisposes a person to be able to age without the harsh side effects of aging. Anna longs to be the oldest person alive in their world but she has no desire to have her DNA or family studied. Unfortunately for her the others out vote her and Dr. Hashmi arrives to take their blood and begin the interview process. Anna having lived to 112 has secrets that she would like to keep from her family and maybe even from herself.
THE ROOTS OF THE OLIVE TREE is a complex moving novel of five generations of first born Keller women. The author Courtney Miller Santo provides the reader with the point of view of each of the Keller women. The reader learns how the Kellers came to Sacramento Valley and how the Olive trees became the foundation of their lives. As each Keller women narrates their personal history the reader is given the opportunity to hear their deep dark secrets. As close as the Keller women are each has kept a piece of themselves secret from their family. While the study continues each woman deals with their past and prays it won't ruin their future. In Anna's case she has a secret buried so deep she has subconsciously kept it from herself but will the results of Dr. Hashmi's study expose the one thing Anna never wanted to know herself to her family. If her secret is exposed what will happen to her family?
I thoroughly enjoyed reading THE ROOTS OF THE OLIVE TREE. I became fascinated by Anna's story and her family's history so much that I kept forgetting there was a study to discover their family's fountain of youth. Author Santo provides a rich, captivating novel of a family whose roots are as deep as those of the olive trees in their groves.
'In the olive grove you've got to be wise in the feet and
wild in the head.' At the heart of the beautiful debut novel
"The Roots of the Olive Tree" are five generations of
firstborn Keller women who live in the same house on an
olive grove in secluded northern California.
Matriarch Anna is 112 and trying to be the oldest woman in
the world - and succeeding heartily. Her daughter Bets,
granddaughter Callie, great-granddaughter Deb, and
great-great granddaughter Erin are also defying the limits
imposed on our lives. When a geneticist comes to study these
marvel of longevity, Erin announces she is pregnant with a
firstborn boy and the Keller women's world is blown wide
open. The family's lives, tied so closely with the land and
the olive trees, are richly evoked with memories echoing
across generations.
Told in turn through the perspective of each of the women,
the mystery of their existence is revealed in rich,
compassionate writing that will remain a treasure across the
generations.
No excerpt available.
© 2003-2026