May Sinclair

The Tree of Heaven May Sinclair

The Tree of Heaven draws upon Sinclair's experiences in the First World War. Concerned with the Harrisoon family, it follows the three children, Michael, Nicky, and Dorothy, as they grow up in the 1900s and face the war as young adults. Dorothy hosts a sufragette meeting that lands her in jail, then trains with the Red Cross and joins an ambulance unit in Belgium. Michael is a poet involved with avant-garde artists, embracing pacifism and resisting family pressure to join up. Nicky is an engineer who enlists early and invents an early prototype of the tank. The novel examines the ideals of the suffrage movement, the spiritual uplift of the war, and the personal cost both could extract from those involved.