The Overstory: Part 1: Roots—Ray Brinkman and Dorothy Cazaly Summary & Analysis

Ray Brinkman and Dorothy Cazaly are “two people for whom trees mean nothing.” In Minnesota in 1974, they go on their first date. Ray is a junior intellectual property lawyer, and Dorothy is a stenographer who often works at his firm. When Ray first asks Dorothy out, she picks the venue: an audition for a community theater production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Neither has acted in anything since high school, and the audition is “terrifying,” but they laugh about it afterwards. Both of them even get cast in the play: Ray as Macduff, and Dorothy as Lady Macbeth.

Ray tries to back out, but Dorothy convinces him not to, and they both take the parts. Ray is a terrible actor at first, but he quickly improves. He is a very innocent man with a strong sense of responsibility and patriotism, and Dorothy tries to test his limits with her own free-spirited whims. The actual staging of Macbeth includes the scene of the traveling forest, and Ray as Macduff hides among its branches. After the wrap party, Ray and Dorothy have sex for the first time. They talk afterward, with Dorothy first asking Ray probing questions and then Ray slowly suggesting that they are meant to be together and should get married. Dorothy is shocked and scornful at first, but then seems to agree.

Five years pass, and Ray becomes a partner at his firm. He is a skilled intellectual property lawyer, and his earnestness and sense of responsibility help him in his work. Meanwhile, Dorothy continues at her stenography job. The couple break up and get back together several times, often in dramatic fashion. One time, Dorothy writes Ray a note, saying that she wants to be with him but is deathly afraid of being someone else’s property. Ray responds, and Dorothy shows up one night with two tickets to Rome. While there, the two finally get married on a whim.

Dorothy moves back in with Ray and occasionally starts thinking about her own future children. On their first anniversary, Ray writes Dorothy a note proposing a plan: that every year, they should plant something new in their yard. Dorothy reads the note while she’s driving, starts to cry, and ends up crashing her car into a large linden tree. She is uninjured except for a cut on her face, but Ray rushes to the hospital in a panic. When Dorothy sees him, she says, “I’m not going anywhere. Let’s plant something.”