Tammy Gregg
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Tammy Gregg crafts literary fiction that explores the elusive lines between reality and the surreal in New England. Her debut novel "Why Did God Make the Tree?" launches 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 Hawthorne, James, and Jackson while addressing modern themes of mental health and institutional power through her distinct literary voice.
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Why Did God Make the Tree?
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Literary Fiction
In this literary gothic tale, horror novelist Dr. Patrick Denny returns to psychiatry at Everston Psychiatric Hospital in the seemingly quaint New England town of Waylingbrooke, New Hampshire. Challenging the institution’s rigid reliance on medication, he guides three troubled patients through the labyrinth of their own minds: an insomniac haunted by her parents’ deaths; a young man who believes he’s trapped inside one of Patrick’s horror stories; and a catatonic woman lost in the dark forest of her psyche. In his attempt to untangle the mysteries of their troubled minds, 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. 
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