I had the in-person book club meetings for North Woods by Daniel Mason yesterday; I hosted three discussion sessions with different groups and one thing I was trying to work out from all of them is how you recommend this particular book (which I admit is challenging at elevator pitch) to other readers. I ‘made’ my (very willing) book clubs read it and they (generally) loved it, but maybe 80% of the members said they wouldn’t have bought this book if it hadn’t been selected as the book club choice. Some of the people who wouldn’t have bought it then said it might be their favourite book we’ve read this year. Which leaves me with a bit of a bookseller conundrum because this part of this letter is going out to everyone who hasn’t yet read North Woods by Daniel Mason and now I’ve got to try and tell you why you should.
But, I suppose, it doesn’t really matter to me whether you read this book or not. I’ve already read it, so whatever future sales of this book I might have never had, I’ve already gained the experience of spending time with this book, and as both a writer and a reader, I’m saying it to you now that this is significant.
North Woods holds many stories, but this is a novel about the land and the lives it is witness to. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and I’m left wondering how to explain to you that a book that covers 400 years doesn’t feel heavy, that a writer who names more plants than characters isn’t boring, that a book with songs and illustrations, lusty beetles and axe-wielding ghosts isn’t even remotely silly. Let me try to tell you…
Mason’s novel is written in separate sections, punctuated by illustrations that act as palate cleansers before you step into another story, told by another voice. Each story is rooted to the same plot of a land, an apple orchard in Massachusetts, pre-, peri- and post the family that planted it. Their home, the yellow house, is a place many people take refuge over the years, shaping it to their own needs and situation. The stories span many lifetimes and while some of the characters spend only part of their lives in the shelter of the yellow house and the woods that surround it, it also appears that some intend to be there for eternity.
You know me, I love an experimental novel and there’s nothing more delightful to me than a writer who gives me a story that I know nothing about (in this case, the flora and fauna of New England/ schizophrenia/ the business of growing eating apples) and then presents it to me in a way that is so playful in its execution, it feels like an invitation to join in. I don’t think Daniel Mason wrote this novel hoping to inspire the writers who read it, but I think he took great pleasure in challenging and indulging his own experience of what writing a novel could be like and for me that’s evident on every page of this book. Which is why, at a sentence level, it is so springy, and paragraph by paragraph it is smooth and easy to read. This book is a ride; a simulator that moves you though time itself, through a relatively short and small part of American history and charms you with stories of the settlers that infiltrated that land. It’s a book about the land but it’s a story about people. It’s a thoughtful book, that asks the readers to consider nature and history as forces that must be respected as part of any present. Threads that are paused when one section ends resurface in other parts of the book – a reminder that connections colour our entire world, that man is always at the mercy of nature, and that people will continue to hurt and love each other in equal measure.
For all its playful nature, Mason does demand some work from the reader. While the parts themselves are easy to read, enjoyable and surprising, there’s a mystery to be solved within each one. There are no dates to anchor the stories, no definite data that can help you place the period, or work out how much time has passed in the interim while you were looking at that etching or that painting. Suddenly there’ll be a clue - oh, we have cars, now, aeroplanes, etc. But that knowledge must be earned by a reader who is willing to walk into the woods again and again. Similarly, there’s no character list or family tree to pre-empt the connections that run through the stories. What it shows to me that is Mason is a writer that implicitly trusts the reader to follow him there. He knows you’ll work it out, and it’ll feel all the better that you did it by yourself. I think it’s a particularly brave and respectful element to his writing, and the rewards are bountiful.
One of my readers yesterday said the stories were sad. It’s true, while each story struggles with a tragedy of some sort (that’s life when there’s 400 years of it), for me, it isn’t a sad book overall. In fact, I’ll remember it’s humour (Anastacia!) more than anything - no, scratch that - I’ll be forever haunted by the scene of someone burying them self alive in the aftermath of something I can’t tell you about here.
The writing is curious and dynamic in its approach, it’s matter of fact when the facts are of life. Everywhere has known birth, death, invention and devastation, every home has housed an affair, art and murder. Every person has known fear, jealously and secrecy, why not the squirrels too, the insects, the mountain lions that lurk nearby? North Woods is an enchanting novel, a cacophony of voices and narratives that, while firmly placed in their specific place and time, can’t help but give an inquisitive nudge back toward the reader – what is the history of where you find yourself before you were in it? What is the unseen world that you walk across without noticing? What’s the best way to break down centuries into a novel that people want to read and how do you create a satisfying ending to a story that could stretch in both directions to the ends of time?
To avoid spoilers, I am going to talk about some of my favourite parts of the book behind the paywall below, and to pose a few more questions to the Substack arm of my book club about the ending of the book – which I truly loved, and thought elevated everything I’d read before it.
If you’re keen to read North Woods there’s a purchase link here that directly supports my independent bookshop, and if you want to upgrade your subscription to this newsletter you can join us for book club next month, when we’ll be reading and discussing Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale.