Mason’s historical fiction...brilliantly combine the granularity of realism with the timeless, shimmering allure of myth. His new novel, North Woods, promises — and delivers — more of the same ... A hodgepodge narrative, brazenly disjointed in time, perspective and form. Letters, poems and song lyrics, diary entries, medical case notes, real-estate listings, vintage botanical illustrations, pages of an almanac ... That North Woods proves captivating despite its piecemeal structure is testament to Mason’s powers as a writer, his stylish and supple narrative voice ... The secret of North Woods, its blending of the comic and the sublime, lies in the way Mason, deftly toggling between the macro and micro, manages to do both. He not only acknowledges cosmic indifference but celebrates it, even as he pauses to recognize the humans who experience jubilation and heartbreak as they wend their way toward oblivion. This is fiction that deals in minutes and in centuries, that captures the glory and the triviality of human lives. The forest and the trees: Mason keeps both in clear view in his eccentric and exhilarating novel.
Haunting, haunted ... The literary gods are inscrutable — the book club overlords even more so — but I’m praying you’ll consider getting lost in North Woods this fall. Elegantly designed with photos and illustrations, this is a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic ... Mason isn’t just passively watching the evolution of this site in the forest. Each chapter germinates its own form while sending out tendrils that entwine beneath the surface of the novel ... Revelatory.
Because Mason’s novel operates in such a robust variety of styles and voices, it is — perhaps more than its arboreal literary brethren — an unusually spectacular showcase of the various powerful responses that nature provokes in us, from wonderment to utter derangement ... If the episodes that make up North Woods are largely grim, Mason’s delivery is a pleasure, fueled by his exuberance at inhabiting the unique voices of a clutch of characters ... The fractured storytelling is all the better to suggest that, like the trees, humanity doesn’t operate in isolation.
[An] irresistible conceit ... Mason is a wonderfully fluent mimic and he reproduces styles from a long lineage of New England writing ... A rich, if nicely ironized, spirit of legend infuses the linked tales as well ... A shift makes for a very different novel and, in this reader’s opinion, a less exciting one. As the episodes fold in on themselves, any resonance with the progress of the wider world disappears, and North Woods becomes more of a clever narrative contraption, circular and self-contained.
Gorgeous ... Manages, impressively, to balance both the narrow and the long view, intimately focusing on the lives of each of the house's inhabitants, yet expansively encompassing American history, natural history, and the relentless march of time and the cycle of the seasons ... It is the elegance with which Mason spins and links these stories in 12 chapters (each roughly connected to a different month) that truly dazzles ... here is nothing meager about this book, or Daniel Mason's talent.
[A] curiosity-piquing cocktail of mystery and wonderment that Daniel Mason’s North Woods taps into with equal parts whimsy and aplomb. A verdant and impressively varied portrait ... He plays with form and timing ... Fires on all cylinders by engaging all the senses as it transports readers through history. Frankly, I’d follow Mason’s writing wherever it takes me next, even though this time — miraculously — he stayed in the same spot.
Although this is Mason's sixth book, he writes with the glee and curiosity of a writing student who was given dozens of varied assignments by his teacher and who nailed every one of them. It's a dazzling high-wire act — and it's thrilling to read because it never feels like Mason is showing off, just that he thought way outside the box as he searched for the perfect format for each story ... There are a lot of great books coming out this fall but, if I were you, I'd start with this one.
In its best moments — North Woods is a tender lament for our vanishing earthly paradise ... Mason supplements conventional narrative with a sensationalist true crime exposé, psychiatric case files, an epistolary love affair, (rather tedious) olde-timey ballad lyrics ... Some of these devices are more fanciful than fulfilling, but Mason’s clearly having fun with form ... Mason’s attentiveness to the natural world is bold and knowledgeable, documenting the minutiae of the forest’s changing seasons, the introduction of invasive species, the heyday of apex predators, and the arrival of existential threats in the elm bark beetle and chestnut blight. He seems more hesitant to fully engage with the iniquities of America’s past, however ... Increasingly cannibalizes the characters and legacies of its early chapters so it can tie everything together in an unwieldy, if genuinely romantic, bow. As with the moralizing modern sensibilities and playfully quixotic storytelling, the novel is maybe trying to do too much, but overall it’s hard not to come away feeling a bit wistful, seeing what we’ve lost and imagining what lies ahead in our probably dystopian future.
Innovative ... Moving ... This is a brave and original book, which invents its own form. It is both intimate and epic, playful and serious. To read it is to travel to the limits of what the novel can do.
Deliciously chimeric: however fantastical or eccentric, it’s always ordered by the movement of seasons, and steadied by the homestead at its centre, intact to the final page.
The supernatural elements ultimately distract from the broader ecofictional design ... More powerful is the novel’s sobering final vision, a rebuke to our irrepressible and destructive egocentrism.
Beguiling ... Much of the writing about nature is done exquisitely, but as important is a form of pathetic fallacy. We see the same scenes through different eyes and they had very different ways of understanding their relationship to the woods ... This is kaleidoscopic, multi-voiced material: but is it just spinning plates for the pizzazz of it? ... I think not. For one thing there are a range of totems – I hesitate to call them symbols as their exact meaning is shifting ... I very much hope that prize judges take this book seriously this year.
Ambitious ... Narrative expertise is supported by rich characterisation: in chapter after chapter, Mason swiftly realises his compelling, varied cast ... It seems almost a magic trick, the way in which Mason knits his lives into a single tale. He links their stories together with a satisfying subtlety that never fails to surprise and delight.
The prose, in these opening pages, clearly wants you to swoon and call it 'lush'. But it comes on too strong and instead compels you to back away in mild embarrassment ... All very worrying, and we’re still on page four. But park your qualms for now. North Woods is one of those novels that keeps jumping forward in time, switching fictional modes with each leap. It’s the sort of stunt that tests both the novelist’s virtuosity and the reader’s goodwill ... Frustrating, involving, virtuoso, sentimental.
Remarkable ... Written across the seasons, the land provides the backbone of this story and as the chapters unfold, links to previous ones, and previous times, become clearer. This is a truly masterful work.
Deliciously imaginative ... Mason fashions a parade of intriguing characters ... Mason is a graceful writer who adeptly juggles an impressive variety of literary styles ... Extraordinary.
Remarkable ... Although the novel spends varying amounts of time with each successive set of characters, Mason depicts all of their stories with sympathy, sensitivity, and affectionate humor. Epic in scope and ambitious in style, this book succeeds on all counts. Highly recommended.
A novel so lush with stories and moods that it defies adequate description ... A love poem to the human and natural history of Western Massachusetts. One of the novel’s enticements is the exuberant descriptions of evolving nature. Another is discerning the relationships among the succession of occupants here in the north woods. Most brilliant of all is the novel’s daring storytelling, through which its tales come spectacularly to life. They are wise, profound, chilling, carnal and funny. North Woods is an amazing and deeply pleasurable tour de force.
Inhabitants reinforce the dual nature of the human condition, simultaneously serving as minuscule collections of molecules against the inevitable march of time while also contributing to a collective, quasi-supernatural consciousness. Truly triumphant.
[A] spectacular ghost story ... Mason interleaves his crystalline prose with enchanting and authentic-seeming historical documents, including a Native American captivity narrative, psychiatrist case notes, and pulpy true crime reportage. Each arc is beautifully, heartbreakingly conveyed, stitching together subtle connections across time. This astonishes.
Throughout, this loose and limber novel explores themes of illicit desire, madness, the occult, the palimpsest of human history, and the inexorable workings of the natural world...all handled with a touch that is light and sure. Like the house at its center, a book that is multitudinous and magical.
