North Woods

I read North Woods over the last week or so, and I really liked it. It’s a generational novel covering European settlement in an area of western Massachusetts from sometime in the late 1600s going forward a few centuries into the future. That sounds like it would be kind of superficial, but the stories of individuals are detailed. The author, Daniel Mason, takes his time to paint pictures of the characters and their surroundings fully.

There are a lot of interesting parts of how the stories intertwine. The first, about two lovers who flee a Puritan colony to live among Native Americans, is only fully explained through historical analysis and archaeological evidence discovered by characters centuries later. But the stories move forward in time, too — characters from the 1700s and 1800s influence later stories as ghosts or with the structures or objects they create.

A part that deeply struck me was the coverage of the tree epidemics that have devastated the forests of the Northern woods region of North America. Each one is detailed, from chestnut blight to emerald ash borers, with as much narrative focus as for the human characters. As someone who lives in the same ecoregion as the book is set in — although many kilometers to the north — I found that the tragedy really resonated for me.

The approach to the supernatural, to coincidence, and to history are also lovely themes. All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I found I had to pay close attention to catch the details that tied the stories together, but the focus paid off.

I listened to the audio book on Audible. It’s an ensemble cast, with multiple voices for the different stories, as well as for the interstitial poems and fragments between stories. It was natural and cohesive enough that I didn’t really notice that there were multiple voices until the closing credits.

I think the book’s broad perspective, looking forward and back, are a great eye-opener. I’d recommend this book.