North Woods

                                         *free review copy* 

Title: North Woods

Author: Daniel Mason

Publisher: Random House

Release Date: 9.19.23

Publisher’s Summary 

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?

My Review

The summary for this novel is so perfect that I can't really think of much to add. Picture a little house in the New England woods and all the stories the house and the woods could tell you. The house would tell you stories of lovers, families, and feuds. The land would tell you stories of what is planted, grown, and buried. The house grows and shrinks with additions and demolitions. Bugs, birds, and animals mate, migrate, and go extinct. Time marches on and the chapters lay bare a myriad of horrors both natural and manmade (sometimes woman-made.) 

Beginning in the mid-1700s and spanning to a modern-day/near-future digital rendering of the space, this little spot in the woods is full of stories that had my heart breaking and my jaw dropping. North Woods is as much an ode to nature as it is a series of character studies, and I had a "that makes sense" epiphany when I read Daniel Mason's author bio at the end of the novel, learning that he is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. 

I have not read any of Mason's other work but now I've got to check out some of his other novels: The Piano Tuner, A Far Country, The Winter Soldier, and (Pulitzer Prize finalist) A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth. 

Have you read any books by Daniel Mason? 
Is North Woods on your TBR?