North Woods

 

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It just helps keep this space going.

My book club picked this one for the month, and then I missed the discussion because I’m at the beach. 🏖️

North Woods by Daniel Mason follows a single house in the western Massachusetts woods across a few centuries, along with everyone who lives there.

It doesn't read like a typical novel. It's more like a set of linked short stories, and sometimes the thread connecting them doesn't show up for decades. Some chapters are heartbreaking. The one about a young man and his schizophrenia really stuck with me. Others are funny in a bittersweet way, like the amateur historian who gets kicked out of his historical society for being a cad.

The writing is detailed but never drags. Each time period feels well researched, and the setting is so atmospheric you can almost smell the pine. I did have to ask my husband, a retired history teacher, to help me sort out the Colonial-era setting in the early chapters.

Fair warning: more than once I thought, "What the heck am I reading?" My book club agreed. The consensus was the book was interesting, bizarre, and a bit hard to get through in spots. I liked some chapters much more than others, but I've never read anything quite like it.

📚 Readers' advisory note: this one's for patient readers who like books that take big swings with structure. If you want a fast plot and one main character to follow, skip it.

I liked it more than I loved it, but the storytelling is so original that it earned four stars from me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You can grab a copy of North Woods from Bookshop.org and help an indie bookstore while you're at it.

If you like this review, you might be interested in my recommendations for Revolutionary War reads.

About the Author

Daniel Mason was born and raised in Northern California. He studied biology at Harvard, and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His first novel, The Piano Tuner, published in 2002, was a national bestseller and has since been published in 27 countries. His other works include A Far Country, The Winter Soldier, and A Registry of My Passage Upon Earth, and his writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine and Lapham’s Quarterly. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit Daniel's website for more news and information about his books.