Why Did God Make the Tree?

Within the boundary between reality and nightmare, a psychiatrist confronts the dark mysteries of his patients’ minds – and his own.

Something isn’t quite right in Waylingbrooke, New Hampshire. Beneath the shadow of the town’s red brick watch tower, Dr. Patrick Denny – once a successful horror novelist – returns to his former profession of psychiatry, seeking solace in the quiet routines of Everston Psychiatric Hospital. Instead, he finds himself guiding his patients through the labyrinth of their minds: Samantha, an insomniac haunted by her parents’ deaths; Michael, who believes he’s living inside one of Patrick’s stories; and Amelia, a catatonic woman lost for decades in the dark forest of her psyche.

In his attempt to untangle the mysteries of their troubled minds, Patrick finds that his own tormented past begins to bleed into his present, and the macabre storyteller that still dwells within him threatens to emerge. As stories seem to birth stories and reality loses its edges, Patrick must question whether his return to psychiatry offers deliverance or signals his final descent into madness.

Why Did God Make the Tree? is a haunting exploration of consciousness in the tradition of Victorian and Modernist Gothic fiction. The novel weaves together psychology and superstition, reality and fantasy as the boundaries between stories within stories dissolve, unfolding as a triptych of tales – The Tower, The Monster, and The Tree. Gregg’s evocative debut rewards patient readers with its intricate layering and dreamlike depth, a return to classic storytelling that probes the eternal questions of sanity, reality, and the human need for narrative.

Author Biography

Tammy Gregg crafts literary fiction that explores the shifting boundaries between reality and the surreal in New England. Her debut novel “Why Did God Make the Tree?” introduces the Patrick Denny series, weaving together multiple narratives that examine how stories shape our understanding of consciousness and truth. A lifelong New Englander with degrees in English from Boston University, Gregg carries forward the psychological complexity of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James, as well as the uncanny dread of Arthur Machen and the atmospheric menace of Daphne du Maurier, while establishing her own distinctive voice in the Gothic tradition.