North Woods

by Daniel Mason

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave - only to discover that the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister conman, a stalking panther, a lusty as each inhabitant confronts the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other. It is not just an unforgettable novel about buried secrets and inevitable fates, but a way of looking at the world.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Nature, Historical

372 pages, Hardcover

First published September 19, 2023

About the author

Daniel Mason is a physician and author of The Piano Tuner (2002), A Far Country (2007), The Winter Soldier (2018), A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth (2020)--a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize-- and North Woods (2023). His work has been translated into 28 languages, awarded a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Piano Tuner was produced as an opera by Music Theatre Wales for the Royal Opera House in London, and adapted to the stage by Lifeline Theatre in Chicago. His short stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All Story, Zyzzyva, Narrative, and Lapham’s Quarterly, and have been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a National Magazine Award and an O. Henry Prize. An assistant professor in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry, his research and teaching interests include the subjective experience of mental illness and the influence of literature, history, and culture on the practice of medicine.

Reviews

[Melissa ~ Bantering Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

North Woods had the unfortunate luck of being the book I picked up after a long string of sharp, intelligent, and edgy reads. I’ve chosen well lately, and because of this, the novel suffers somewhat to others I’ve read.

It may just be me, though. A handful of early reviewers are rumbling about the Pulitzer for Daniel Mason, so that should tell you something. But I’m not one of them.

The structure of the novel is original: twelve interlinked stories corresponding with the seasons and months of the year, all set around a house in a New England forest. The first story takes place in the time of the Puritans, with each subsequent tale advancing through history and focusing on the revolving inhabitants of the house. Among others, Mason writes of an apple man, spinster twin sisters, and a painter – the stories all stunning in prose and cleverly linked, many shaded with a twisted darkness and a bit of the supernatural.

Each tale, too, is couched within some of the most beautiful nature writing I’ve ever encountered. Mason paints a vivid scenic picture and shows us how the land changes over time due to human interference, climate change, and blights. His ability to illustrate the interconnectedness of our natural world is unmatched.

But while the novel’s beauty may be inarguable, Mason's stories are told simply from the surface. There’s not enough depth to them, nor enough weight, to back up the gorgeous prose. They lack emotion and intricate characterization.

Until the very end, that is. The last two stories are works of art. The characters are fleshed and real, the narrative so evocative that my overall rating for the novel jumped from three stars to four.

If only Mason had made me feel throughout the entire book as he did in his final pages. If only I had experienced a connection to all the stories, not just a few.

If only.
If only.

Only then would Pulitzer be on my lips, too.


Mark your calendars. North Woods publishes September 19, 2023.

I buddy read North Woods with my dear friend, Melissa Crytzer Fry. Be sure to also read her review; I suspect she may have a different take on the book.

My sincerest appreciation to Daniel Mason, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now THIS is why I read! Daniel Mason has created a masterwork with North Wood. If he doesn’t write another word in his life – and that would be a crying shame – his reputation is sealed with this marvel of a book. It’s bound to win the next Pulitzer and more importantly, the hearts of many readers like me.

If I sound overly enthusiastic, it’s because I truly am. I read this elegiac and sui generis novel with mounting awe and an abundance of admiration. The handful of pages about a lusty beetle is in itself worth the price of admission.

I can see my literary friends scratching their heads and asking, “Yes, but what’s this novel about? A lusty BEETLE? The power of nature and how it heals us? A pathologically jealous sibling? A mass murder? A deep dive into psychiatric disorders? A story of unrequited and society-shunned love? A GHOST story?” My answer to all the above would be “yes” but that barely scratches the surface of things.

If I had to sum up this book with one word, that word would be “connection.” Daniel Mason strips bare the tenuous connection between transient characters – those who once existed, do exist, and will continue to exist – within a setting that endures and is ever-changing. As one of the characters says about the boundaries that separate us, “One believes the world is enchanted or one does not.”

By the end of the book, it’s hard not to believe that there is enchantment at work in the world. As Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage”, and in Daniel Mason’s staging, the cycle of the seasons, the scents and sounds, the birds and mountain lions and beetles all have their place as humankind too, acts out its own dramas.

I haven’t yet addressed the prose. The author is like a magician, starting off by channeling Hawthorne and then quickly cycling through everything from old letter and medical case notes to poetry and mystery magazines. Moreover, no matter what voice he is adapting, he does it so well that the world melts away.

If you just read one book this year, make sure this is the one. I am so very grateful to Random House for enabling me to be an advance reader in exchange for an honest review. I would give this one six stars if I could!

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

By the time ghosts start gathering in Daniel Mason’s “North Woods,” it’s too late to flee. You’re already rooted to this haunting, haunted novel about a homestead in western Massachusetts.

Don’t be afraid: Go in the house.

I’ve been raving about Mason’s work since his gorgeous debut, “The Piano Tuner,” was published more than 20 years ago while he was in medical school. He’s since won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, along with a Pushcart Prize, an O. Henry Prize and a National Magazine Award. In 2021, his first collection of short stories, “A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

And yet Mason somehow still feels always about to break out. The literary gods are inscrutable — the book club overlords even more so — but I’m praying you’ll consider getting lost in “North Woods” this fall. Elegantly designed with photos and illustrations, this is a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic.

The novel begins some 400 years ago with two naughty Pilgrims fleeing their settlement and hiding from soldiers sent out to drag them home. “They were Nature’s wards now,” Mason writes. “Barefoot they ran through the forest … to the north woods.” They dare to marry themselves in the hollow of an old oak and swim naked in the brook. The young man, an “ungodly” rake who “consorted with heathens,” hauls a flat stone out of the water and sets it down in a clearing to mark the corner of their new home. From that act of illegal passion and wild optimism arises a vast tale that eventually contains. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Canadian Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's address the elephant in the room OR should I say the CAT on the cover? Two thumbs down for that, Mason. Not a great way to start. I wasn't going to read this but having read my trusted GR friend's reviews, I thought, I must give it a go.

It was ok at the start...nature, apple orchards, an isolated cabin in the woods.How the land carried one to some. But, this read as several short stories - which I'm not fond of. Mid point, I was wondering if it would pick up. My mind was beginning to wander..uh oh.

Mason's writing is terrific..but, it's not The Winter Soldier
Do check out some other reviews as they are glowing. It just didn't glow for me.
2.5⭐️

[Kerrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise of this novel: stories about the inhabitants of one piece of property over the decades. However, I found much of the book to be weird. While some of the characters had compelling histories, others included murderers, an obsessed apple grower, twin spinster sisters, a schizophrenic, an adulterer, a psychic, gay lovers, ghosts, prisoners, and a hungry catamount (a wildcat similar to a mountain lion).

I will probably be an outlier on this one. The professional reviewers are loving it. The flowery writing and occasional poetry just weren't my cup of tea.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this unique novel.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I smell next Pulitzer. I also smell the forest, the flowers, the entire flora and fauna, the insects, the soil, the entire landscape of western Massachusetts, going back to the start of the novel, four-hundred years ago. Daniel Mason creates a profound narrative that ascends the setting to protagonist level, the house and the woods of this narrative carrying on history and ascendancy.

Humans are transient; nature takes its course, and the primary house metamorphoses into sovereignty or supplication to the terrain. The people in this novel are beautifully wrought, and Mason gives powerful attention to art, mental illness, colonialism, slavery, grief, aging, poetry, music, and so much more. But, if the lives of these people are the television shot, it is fleeting, momentary. They get their fifteen minutes, yet are largely bystanders to the cycle of Mother Earth.

I’m a native of Massachusetts and know the beauty of western Mass.,--the Berkshires, the Connecticut River Valley, the breathtaking views, the forests and its mighty trees. Mason’s book is compared with Richard Power’s, The Overstory, as both novels address the destruction of American forests. NW had me turning to Wikipedia and Google images again and again to look up the images of everything from bugs to bowers--a tremendous, encyclopedic adventure into the woods. Apple orchards have never been so beautifully rendered in an American novel, either.

North Woods never feels stilted or overplayed, as the nature of life, death, and procreation was woven elegantly, masterfully through the story. We relate to the humans that dwell in this narrative, and we feel the marching of time through the natural world. Our lives are linear, while nature continues its seasonal rebirth. Human behavior has intruded upon the ecosystem, has altered the forests, sometimes in terrible ways. Nature, too, can surprise us with irruptive change.

The impact of four centuries of time leaves much in its wake. Apropo of the narrative—the plot is propulsive, the book compelling, unputdownable, and deeply consequential to the theme. The way Mason integrates both is sublime. The yoking of the corporeal and spiritual is transcendent. Time is a constant refrain.

A piquant conversation between author Anthony Marra and Daniel Mason (at the end of the novel) gives us insight into Mason’s connection of nature and mental health. The author is a psychiatrist (I am a psychiatric RN), and, while reading this tour de force, I often felt like it was written for me. If an author can evoke that for even one reader, it is a triumph.

As I now leaf casually through the pages again, choosing any passage, I’m more aware of the novel’s eternal circle of Time. Mason is a literary treasure, you must read him for pleasure and purpose, for the rings of imagination, the majestic trees, the tiny bugs, the force of human consciousness upon nature—our capacity to grow and spoil, and to find solace in these beautiful woods of Mason’s mind.

“Sometimes, overwhelmed, she retreats into the forests of the past. …and she has found that the only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change. …she’d dreamed about these ancient forests,… Skies blackened by bird flocks, valleys full of grazing moose and elk. The glens echo with the songs of long-lost warblers…, children singing in Mohican, wolf howl. Rivers so thick with fish that she could walk on them. The ghosts of the damselflies, dryad’s saddle, elm trees: a thousand angels on a blade of grass.”

I am so deeply thankful to Penguin Random House for sending me an ARC for review.

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daniel Mason writes beautifully so I wasn’t surprised to be drawn in with the first sentence since I loved the writing in The Winter Soldier and The Piano Tuner. In this imaginatively written book he connects the stories of multiple characters to a place and a solitary house in the north woods of Massachusetts. The characters become bound to the natural surrounding and to each other over time. The descriptions need to be reread at times just because. The format is a blend of stories, songs, letters, an article by a true crime writer. It is though, gruesome at times, dark at times, even creepy.

I can’t say that I was taken by every story, though. Yet it feels as if there is something profound here about the linking of the past to the present, a regeneration of the land and the trees through centuries. I loved where it began and ended, just not every story in between. While I was emotionally connected in the beginning to the young Puritan couple who started it all, I didn’t fully connect with all of the characters moving forward until the last chapter centuries later whose affinity and love for the woods of the past provides a stunning ending. In spite of the shortcoming for me, it’s 4 stars because the writing carries it .

I received a copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given the number or 5 star reviews of this book, I'm just going to conclude that either I'm not the right audience or it's not the right time for me. It was really good for almost 200 pages, then quickly devolved into a long, strange trip, as Jerry Garcia might say. I mostly skimmed the last third of the pages, mainly to see where it was headed. I got no satisfaction, other than to say I was finished.

[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enchanting novel that narrates a story of the land and a house through the lives of their owners. Most original idea and characters who could seem to be chosen by the place rather that the other way round. Epic story that spans over two centuries and ends where it started. Characters who will not leave you indifferent. My personal deep emotions lie with the twin sisters and their father - what a story!
*A big thank-you to Daniel Mason, John Murray Press, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Mason has infused North Woods with some of the most exquisite writing that I encountered in all of 2024. More precisely, his prose about the natural world dazzled and inspired me. This isn’t, however, a piece of non-fiction nature writing. It is a work of fiction but clearly written by someone who knows this neck of the woods- that of western Massachusetts. I had to pinch myself to make sure I was still sitting in western New York! I’ve walked through an apple orchard before, but never with the feeling this passage invokes:

“If life was a song, theirs was more refrain than verse. And yet to have claimed that a warm spring morning walking over earth carpeted with apple blossoms was somehow the same, substantively, spiritually, as a cold winter noon spent pruning, or a harvest evening heavy with the smell of juice and hay – this would have betrayed an ignorance not only of country life, but of the thousand seasons – of frogsong, of thunderheads, of first thaws – that hid within the canonical Four.”

The novel is a series of interconnected stories, spanning hundreds of years and numerous characters. It’s not a generational family saga though. Rather, it’s about those people that come to inhabit a house and a piece of land that is practically a living and breathing character in its own right. The people come and go but the place goes on, morphing with the seasons, the years. There’s often a mystical, supernatural tone to the book. Nature doesn’t give a damn about the people. Nature still does her thing and life goes on. Plants and trees decay, giving back to the earth something that will make a new thing in its place. The same is true with the people though. Our lives are little blips in the circle of life, but sometimes we linger. Memories of former selves exist, relics of past lives echo through time.

“It’s just the woods,” she said, but then she heard it, or smelled it, or felt it, she didn’t know what. The door was wide open and snow was blowing, and she could sense it, circling in the darkness beyond the house.”

Daniel Mason’s concept is truly brilliant. While reading this, I was sure this was going to land at a solid four stars. Mostly it was a matter of taste and timing for me personally. While I understand the characters weren’t the whole point of the novel, I still wanted to connect with one or two of them. Well, perhaps I did. The last voice in the book is that of a student from Amherst who ventures to the north woods of Massachusetts to work on a project. She was so fully developed in a span of a few pages that I ached along with her. With the holiday season and personal circumstances making varying demands on my time and attention, several days went by before I looked over my notes. The book stayed with me, however. The thing is, just like those souls who briefly passed through the north woods, the memory lingers like something just out of reach that I can sense and long to grasp. Yes, I understand it, Mr. Mason. Thank you, sir.

“… she has found that the only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.”

[Trudie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might be one of the few readers that hasn't been swept away by this one and yet it is on just about every 2023 "best of list".

It might not help that I recently read and loved Lauren Groff's Vaster Wilds which I now realise is a mightily different novel, however the two share a starting off point and I was hoping to be similarly enraptured.
The North Woods isn't the kind of historical fiction that works for me ( and to me honest I am not a great appreciator of the genre under the best conditions ). Why didn't I like this ?

- Short stories linked by a house sounded good in principle in reality only a couple of the stories held my interest.
- There are more ghosts than I had been led to believe. Zero ghosts being an ideal number.
- Riffs on beetles having sex didn't enamour me
- Its quite depressing !
- I wanted dates. It seemed like an crazy amount of ownership suddenly occurred between 1997 and the end ? If I am fretting about a timeline, then something about the writing/ characters is not engaging me.
- Richard Powers does the "power of trees" thing far better in The Overstory

If I squint I can maybe see what others like about this perhaps I am being curmudgeonly but I am going to remain a detractor.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

’If these old walls,
If these old walls could speak
Of things that they remember well,
Stories and faces dearly held,
A couple in love
Livin' week to week,
Rooms full of laughter,
If these walls could speak.’
--If These Walls Could Speak by Amy Grant


This is a story of home and place, as well as of nature, both the nature that surrounds us, as well as human nature. A story that spans several centuries, but is focused on a place, and a home as time passes. Sharing the lives of the people who have taken refuge in this house that evolves over time.

It begins with a couple who are being hunted, and together they escape the colony after he had been declared ‘ungodly’. She had been, against her will, set to be married to a minister twice her age. As they left that night, the light from a comet guided their path.

They left the colony with little in terms of food, but they find sustenance in the gardens of others, a stolen chicken that will provide them with more. They continued on, trying to find a place in the world where they could be free of fear. In a bower they said their vows to one another, and so they were married. After a time, he declares they are safe now, the silence, the air and the wind have declared it so.

The next day, they reach a valley with a mountain above, a trail that leads to a pond, a clearing with seedlings peeking up from the soil. It is a sign to him that this place has accepted them, and will sustain them. On the day that follows, they reach the valley, and find a place with a brook that leads to a pond, a clearing, and seedlings already rising toward the sky. In that brief moment, he decides that this is where they will call home.

This story is less about these two people who make this place their home, it is more about the place we call home. A home, that over generations, will open its doors to those who are drawn to this place as time passes. The connection of these lives being the sharing of this home, a place and the love for it, as well as loss. Their individual stories may be unique, but their connection to this home bonds them through time.


Pub Date: 19 Sept 2023

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Random House

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

My gosh, I was so late to the party on NORTH WOODS, which is inexplicable to me because I loved Daniel Mason's novel, THE WINTER SOLDIER. His 2023 novel, NORTH WOODS, is a very different animal from his earlier work: it's actually a very different animal from most novels. We have a plot of land in western New England, a house, and its inhabitants over hundreds (literally) years of history. The characters (and their ghosts) come and go, as do the apple trees and flowers -- the native plants and the invasives, which could be said about the people, too. And running through the narrative is spectacular wit. For all our discussion of this novel's polyphony and brilliance, let's, please, never lose sight of just how funny Daniel Mason can be. This book is a classic.

[Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

North Woods by Daniel Mason is a beautifully written novel. Spanning centuries, the narrative tells us the stories of those who inhabit a home deep in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Through these stories, we explore not only the history of the land, the people and animals but also how the concept of home and shelter evolve over time and the precious bond human beings have with nature. Forbidden love, enslavement, belongingness and insecurity, rivalry, mental health, climate change and survival are only a few of the themes that are deftly woven into a fluid narrative.

The strength of this novel is the writing and the vivid imagery that transports you to the ”north woods”. The landscape changes over time, stories begin and end and generations of people come and go, leaving an imprint on the land – a legacy of joy, sorrow, loneliness, tragedy and renewal. Told through letters, journal entries, historical records, an article from a true crime magazine and poetry, this is a story that must be read with time and patience. Overall, Daniel Mason’s North Woods is an immersive experience that I would not hesitate to recommend.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group- Random House and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel was published on September 19, 2023.



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[Andy Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Just, wow. Beautiful, intense, complex, heartbreaking. One of the best books I've read this year, and quite possibly one of the finest I've read in my life.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read the last pages of this book, I was overwhelmed with emotion. A sad recognition of what we humans have wrecked upon the earth, combined with a wistful hope that nature is never fully spent, never fully depleted, always ready to grab a chance at rebirth.

I had experienced the history of a place under the hands of people who loved it, a deep woods seemingly separated from the world, yet bearing the scars of civilization and environmental degradation.

It had been a haven for a couple who fled an oppressive society and the Indian captive who later sheltered there, leading to a murder which allowed an apple seed to take root. There was the man who discovers the apple tree and the apple’s miraculous experience of taste; he buys the land and propagates Osgood’s Wonder. Then, his twin daughters inherited the land and cared for it until jealousy brought more death. The woods take over, the catamount inhabiting the house, before it is discovered and claimed once again.

Generations of people come and go. One man, considered a schizophrenic, sees the ghosts of the people who came before. An amateur historian seeks evidence of a colonial murder, a young woman comes to study the flora.

Invasive species arrive and disease that claims the chestnut and beetles decimate the ash. The climate alters and Southern trees arrive, and then fire.

“Then it begins again.”

With inventive chapters that include narratives, ballads, documents and letters, following the generations who come to these woods, the story of a place is revealed as also our communal story. The runaway lovers could be our Adam and Eve, the twin sisters our Cain and Abel. We are the lovers of the land, the destroyers and murderers.

The stone house becomes a Federal home becomes a wreck becomes an improved, modern mansion, falls to neglect, becomes a commune, becomes a hunting cabin. The woods are replaced by an apple orchard and pastureland, grows wild again, is destroyed, and will be reborn.

I love this book. I loved the inventive storytelling, the passage through history, the way it broke my heart and gave me hope.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

The audiobook is marvelous.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the premise of this book..
It’s the story of a house..in the forests of New England.. and the many occupants who lived there throughout many, many years.
It’s also as much about the land and nature as the people in the story.
Some really beautiful writing and the story is magical but also has topics of occult, madness, ghostly presence… but most of all connections across time.

It was a slow read for me.. I had put this down at one point and just recently picked it back up.. I’m glad I did!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC!

[Susan Meissner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most intriguing and cleverly constructed novel I’ve read since The Invisible Life of Addie Larue and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Utterly compelling. A bit dark, a bit mystical, a bit moody, a whole lot engaging. I’d read it again.

[Peter Boyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've seen tons of praise for this book in the last few months, and when I saw it appear on several Best of 2023 lists I knew I had to check it out.

It all centres on a secluded house in New England, and its inhabitants throughout the years, some who are of this world and some who are reluctant to leave it. They vary from a couple escaping a Puritan community, to a widower who becomes obsessed with growing apples, to his twin daughters - one of whom has many suitors, much to the chagrin of the other. And so on up until the present day. Most of these stories end in tragedy, and their spirits haunt the old house, unable to rest.

This is one of those books that is a technical marvel. Mason invents so many vibrant characters that are all completely unique, and the style of each tale reflects the time period it is written in. The plot is complimented by historical documents, psychiatric case notes, song lyrics and love letters, all of which make the story feel more authentic. However I have to say that the novel overall left me cold. I couldn't really connect with the people it described - maybe it was down to the fact that the narrative jumped from one to another so often, and the differences between them often felt jarring. I can see why North Woods wowed the critics, and I'm still glad I read it, but it truly never moved or thrilled me.

[Pat Trattles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I’d paid a bit more attention to the blurb when I requested this title. I can see why it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist because it is rich in literary devices and was filled with beautiful language. The story, however, was lacking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about beautiful language. But there must be a satisfying story to go along with it. I knew it was about a house and those who inhabited it throughout the years but expected to learn more about those inhabitants. Yet their stories felt incomplete. In the beginning they didn’t even have names. And, just when the story of the current occupants got interesting, we moved to the next. We circled back once or twice, but again were left hanging. Unfortunately I was bored during much of the novel. For me this work only deserved two stars. Those who devour “literary stories” will disagree. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Michael -- Justice for Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tales of Change

My favorite rendezvous with a book this year, I was completely unprepared for the affair. 400 years' worth of life for a plot of land– the people, the animals, the plants– completely separate stories told in a myriad of ways– and linking together in one solid symphony. There are books out there with loosely connected ties, and that can be nice… but nothing like this.

The characters in this western Massachusetts woodland setting include Puritan lovers, Native Americans, a British apple orchard farmer, his two spinster daughters, a mountain lion, a slave hunter, a landscape artist ostracized for his lifestyle, two beetles engaged in hot and heavy love-making, a psychic commissioned to communicate with the ghosts of some of the previously mentioned tenants, a mother and her schizophrenic son, a true crimes reporter, and a postgraduate student there to study flowers.

There is so much here– and my guess would have been too much– but Daniel Mason ties everything together beautifully. The voices of these characters, so different in tone and approach, are written so well that you shift with the points of view and trust the author’s touch. The separate pieces here all contribute to the mosaic.

“…she has found that the only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.” This is the tale of nature’s change, of America’s change. There are ghosts, reminders of their effect on the environment they inhabited.

I have to enthusiastically swear by this odyssey. I followed it up by listening to the audio version on Spotify– very highly recommended, as well.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Quirine · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been a very long time I was as instantly enchanted by writing as I was with this one. From the very first pages I was drawn into this world - this small Eden where many lives were lived, but where in the end, nature had the last word every time. Mason’s descriptions of the woods were so visual, so alive, I heard the branches cracking and the birds singing. I expected to struggle because so many characters pass by in such short moments, it could have been difficult to fully connect. But with every new chapter I was completely sucked in. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the characters, who were all memorable in their own way, but about that house in the North Woods. The yellow cabin that was there for all of it, that embraced every person passing through and patiently saw how they loved, struggled, hated, lost, until it was time for someone new. We never really own the places we come, we are simply a chain in a long line of linked stories. This was absolutely beautiful and the end gave me goosebumps.

[Ken]

Although this is a novel, it functions much like a collection of connected short stories. Chapters take on different forms -- letters, ballads, journal entries, narratives. Characters come and go and return in surprising ways. The only constant is the setting -- a settlement in the mountains of western Massachusetts that becomes a house. Farmland. Woodland. Different owners. Time.

A dark horse for favorite book of the year, but it's up there. The last two chapters I just put down would make Thoreau proud. Written by a word lover, a man who has walked in New England woods that became fields (see the rock borders?) that became woods again. Earth eats its own, then gives back. Continually.

In this book, the catamount still lives in these parts. And why not? Many other creatures almost hunted to extinction have made a comeback in New England. The black bear is everywhere. The moose is traipsing around. Coyotes. Red Fox. Was that a howling wolf I heard?

At work here is a touch of ghostly magic, eeriness, romance, mystery, murder, mayhem, domestic bliss, secrecy, desire, etc. But of course. Make your main character a setting that ushers generations from the time of the Revolutionary War to modern day, and how can you NOT wind up with a surprising cavalcade of lives and deaths, good and bad, surprise and humdrum?

A few years back I read The Winter Soldier by Dan'l Mason, too. Recall being pleasantly surprised, but this is even more pleasant and even more surprising because it's more daring.

If you love place, vignettes, nature, ghosts, and apples, go for it. If you need a single human protagonist to help you across reading rivers, pass.

[emma]

if you say "best book of the year," i'm saying i want to read it

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

You’ve heard the rumors. You felt the tremors in the railroad tracks. “North Woods” is the one that should not get away.

The sheer joy and gratification of storytelling. Writing that feels more like electric shocks than a docile alignment of words. A wide-eyed epic told with the palpable glee of a miniature woodworker.

“North Woods” is a searing, twenty thousand feet high, bird’s eye view of life as we cannot see it from our own little earth-bound and time-bound existence.

If metaphysics is the philosophical study of being and knowing, then “North Woods” is THE metaphysical novel. A stupendous and polyphonic illustration of the timeless question: How does our existence intersect with other people and things that exist?

If Daniel Mason is a bird-writer, he is a bird of prey. A hawkish, looming majestic bird who can see both the swishing forest and the tiny rabbit two miles down. “North Woods” gives us the most powerful binocular vision of the cyclical nature of living, zooming in and out of centuries, leaping from the macro to the micro through the story a single cabin in Massachusetts, looping lives together like gold rings on a chain.

As I was close to finishing the novel and strolled from house to house in my neighborhood on Halloween night, fake ghosts and skeletons roaming about as dusk swallowed the streets, I could not help but think about (and feel) all the real ghosts shivering in the trees.

I wanted to ask each new person handing out candy in the dark: “How long have you lived here? How old is your house? Do you know who was living here before you?”.

At its best, literary fiction bends our reality, like a new lens placed in front of a tired eye. This novel takes it to a whole other level of (in)sight.

It could be that “North Woods” is simply the great, idiosyncratic literary splendor of the year.

[Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here it is, my friends, the most incredible book I’ve read in a long, long time and, perhaps because of how amazing it was, trying to explain what is it about is an almost impossible endeavour. I kid you not.

It all starts with an apple. Then a seed of that same apple takes root next to a cabin on the edge of the woods in West Massachusetts. Time passes (as it always does) and the apple tree becomes the start of an orchard. As centuries go by, we get to know a fascinating array of characters, the orchard thrives, the cabin turns into a house, then a bigger house, and then an even bigger house.

The writing here is pure perfection.

I nodded in awe.
I laughed.
I felt moved and inspired.
I was on the edge of my seat.
I turned the pages like I was possessed.

All the ‘feels’, my fellow readers.

When I turned the last page, I felt humbled, small and insignificant, which, if you ask me, is the perfect frame of mind to fully appreciate life and all the wonders of the beautiful world we live in.

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

North Woods by Daniel Mason been lauded by all as one of the most groundbreaking and wondrous books of the year in line for a Pulitzer Prize. But alas, once again, I am an outlier and cannot join the cry of this being a wonderful book. I usually know that I probably won't like the book but so many of my Goodreads friends loved it. So I trusted and it once more was added to my list. While I loved the premise of this little piece of property in the North Woods of northeastern Massachusetts, that over the years many people found themselves here as the novel centers around the moment of its birth with the laying of the foundation stone. And then the decades just fly by as we see the succeeding owners leaving their mark upon the house for good or bad. What a tale this salt box home had to tell. And some of the writing was stunning. But while I enjoyed some of the book, much of it was a struggle. I guess I need to trust my own instincts.

"You asked about the prior owners. According to the Registry of Deeds, it was an Engish major who first built the house after the French and Indian Wars. Found his gravestone in an overgrown orchard high up on the hill out back--soft marble and already barely legible--never imagined I would have my own cemetery. Next transfer of title to the Major's daughters during the Revolution. They are my immediate predecessors if one ignores the sheep, and the venerable Alice any Mary Osgood seemed to have run the place until they packed up and moved away. No one knows when or wherefore--much of the county was abandoned in the '20s and '30s, and when they eventually sent a Land Agent up here, he found it empty. The next owner, in absentia, was a nephew in London, who sat on it until his death. It was his son who sold it to me, though other than clearing out the ovine massacre, no one has laid a finger on the place since the sisters were here--so Trevors assures me and I've got no reason to dispute him."

[Marie (UK) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could review this book in a short sentence as being dreadfully dull and disconnected but i will try to give more of a sense of the book. The author has attempted to tell the story of a place across time by using the people who occupied a single cabin in the woods. As the reader there were sections that i really got into the narrative and that were in some sense evocative. BUT what was he doing with the pages and pages of medical notes about a patient who might benefit from some procedure to cure his psychosis? JUST WHAT was the relevance of the sex life of a beetle? How were the songs and poems related to anything?

Weaving among the here and now was the spectral beyond and I quite liked the ghostly doings I think perhaps this could have had greater influence on the narrative. For me it was just too disconnected. There were too many instances where I wondered where we had gone to and more importantly why. The author tried to create something different but failed to pull it off.He is not an author I will be looking to follow

[Cherisa B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a story when a place or a thing lasts while the people or owners that encounter it through time shuffle through. A book, a violin, or in this case, a remote few acres of woods and a house in Massachusetts. The author has given us a history of a house, the generations who passed through, and some who stayed. Wonderfully rendered, men, women, children, nature, trees, mountain lions. The spirit of the place hangs together wonderfully through the years and moves into the future too.

4 1/2 stars.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Mason has become one of my favorite authors, especially after I read the stories in A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth. And now he has performed his magic again in this volume of interconnected stories linked by a site in northwestern Massachusetts and a small colonial era dwelling built there. North Woods tells the stories of the land and its natural and human inhabitants over the course of over two and a half centuries.

In stories that are historical, sometimes quasi-humorous, sometimes almost gothic, frequently sad in the details of their human lives, Mason writes with his trademark prose of the natural world that underlies all the human activity. The connections between these stories may seem tenuous at times but they are actually strong, as strong as the land itself.

I strongly recommend North Woods to anyone who enjoys short stories, rich characters, and beautiful descriptions of nature and seasonal changes in western Massachusetts. It also shows the flow of history in one area from colonial times to contemporary times as seen through the people and the land.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for access to this book. This review is my own.