Book Review: North Woods by Daniel Mason

Change is the only constant. Given enough time, there is virtually nothing that remains exactly the same. This can inspire both excitement and melancholy in those of us who live through it, and confusion or anger in those who resist it. While there are thrills to be found in new technologies and new stories, watching the world we grew up in morph into something nigh unrecognizable is bound to conjure up at least a little bit of wistful nostalgia. Nevertheless, time marches on, indifferent to our thoughts on its progress.

That sense of relentless transformation sits at the heart of Daniel Mason’s stunning North Woods, which follows an isolated house in the New England woods across the entire history of the United States. Beginning during the conflicts between the early settlers and Native Americans, during which time the house is but a small cabin, we move forward across the decades as a variety of different inhabitants arrive and depart, some directly related to each other, some more tenuously linked. The house expands, the woods shift under natural and human pressures, and each resident grapples with dilemmas both societal and deeply personal.

Each section is told in a unique voice, adapting to the time and the characters, lending them an enhanced authenticity. The cast includes an obsessive apple farmer, his spinster daughters, a nature painter, a slave catcher, a fraudulent medium, and even an amorous insect. Not all are explored with equal depth, but they all leave an impression.

Joy and romance surface, often through the sheer beauty of the surrounding forest, but tragedy shadows most of the lives that pass through these rooms. Not even the trees emerge unscathed. Mason deftly juxtaposes humanity’s capacity for cruelty towards each other with its treatment of the natural world. While not every misdeed is equal in scale or intent, as the effects ripple outward through time the end result can often be unimaginably tragic.

In beautiful, often elegiac prose, Mason calls to mind the connected, almost mystical storytelling of authors like Richard Powers or David Mitchell. Ruminative, metaphysical, unpredictable, and a consistently absorbing, North Woods is the sort of novel that comes along only rarely. Cleverly constructed, with surprising interconnections swirling throughout, this is a story I will treasure, and one of my favorite reads in years. ★★★★★