''North Woods'' is a 2023 novel by American novelist

Daniel Mason ''For the American composer, see Daniel Gregory Mason.'' Daniel Mason (b. ca. 1976) is an American novelist and physician. He is the author of ''The Piano Tuner'' and ''A Far Country''. He was raised in Palo Alto, California, and received a BA ...

. The novel, Mason's sixth, is a work of

historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...

that tells the story of a single house in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

over the course of several centuries.

Plot

''North Woods'' follows the inhabitants of a single house in

over the course of several centuries, from the earliest

American colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centur ...

to the present day. The home's inhabitants include a set of Puritan lovers, twin sisters, a crime reporter, a

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...

, and a pair of mating

beetles Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

Development history

The novel has an

epistolary Epistolary means "in the form of a letter or letters", and may refer to: * Epistolary ( la, epistolarium), a Christian liturgical book containing set readings for church services from the New Testament Epistles * Epistolary novel * Epistolary poem ...

structure, interspersing sequences of prose with letters,

poems Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

, journal entries, and

case notes The terms medical record, health record and medical chart are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the systematic documentation of a single patient's medical history and care across time within one particular health care provider's jurisdic ...

. In an interview with

Scott Simon Scott Simon (born March 16, 1952) is an American journalist and the host of ''Weekend Edition Saturday'' on NPR. Early life Simon was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of comedian Ernie Simon and actress Patricia Lyons. ...

, Mason said that the structure allowed him to explore more voices than he otherwise would have been able to. The book's UK publication rights were acquired in September 2022, in what ''The Bookseller'' reported was a "six-figure deal."

Publication history

''North Woods'' was published in the United States by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

on September 19, 2023. It was simultaneously released in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

by John Murray.

Reception

''North Woods'' received praise upon its release, with critics drawing attention to the novel's prose and construction. ''The New York Times Book Review'' described the novel as "brilliant," praising the book's structure and Mason's prose. ''The Washington Post'''s Ron Charles also praised the book's structure, adding that the overall design was elegant and concluding that the novel was "revelatory." ''The Wall Street Journal'' was similarly positive, complimenting the plot and prose but offering slight criticism towards the structure, writing that "a shift makes for a very different novel and, in this reader's opinion, a less exciting one." ''Library Journal'', ''Shelf Awareness'', and ''

Booklist ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is av ...

'' all directed praise at the novel's characters, with the latter describing them as reinforcing "the dual nature of the human condition." Positive reviews were also published in ''Publishers Weekly'' and ''Kirkus Reviews''. More mixed reviews were published in ''The Boston Globe'' and ''The Times Literary Supplement''. ''The Boston Globe'' wrote that some of the epistolary devices scattered throughout the book were "more fanciful than fulfilling" and criticized Mason for not engaging more with historical inequities throughout the plot. ''The Times Literary Supplement'' criticized the inclusion of supernatural elements while praising the overall story and conclusion. By contrast, ''The Guardian'' positively described the book, with Alice Jolly writing that the book stretched "the limits of what the novel can do." ''North Woods'' was a finalist for The National Book Critics Circle Awards for Fiction in 2023.

References

{{Reflist

External links

''North Woods''
at

Book Marks Literary Hub is a daily literary website that launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and Electric Literature founder Andy Hunter. Conten ...

2023 American novels English-language novels Novels set in the historical United States