Part 5 of our winter “Staff Picks” series
North Woods is a novel written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason. It was easily my favorite read of 2024. The story begins on a plot of land in northern Massachusetts, and remains in the exact same spot for hundreds of years. Starting with a pair of runaway lovers in the 1600s, we bear witness to the North Woods’ changes through the context of natural succession and human interaction.
The novel is bristling with humor, heartbreak, and the wonder of the natural world. There’s something for everyone: true crime, art, nature, love, tragedy, and perhaps a supernatural element.
The chronological chapters are loosely themed around each month of the year—just one of many ways in which the story of the North Woods is reflected in cycles. Each chapter is told through a unique lens, with varying narrators, styles, and voices. We read intimate letters between a poet and a painter; journal entries of a mother; poetry, prose, and one chapter entirely in the form of a footnote!
Through the passage of time, we see different characters interact with familiar features of the land and experience changes caused by interactions of the past. Items of once great significance become arbitrary to all but the reader (and one rather cheeky historian).
The woods themselves are a character, looming on the edge of feeling like home and something beyond comprehension. It is intimate yet universal. It is a reflection of all our homes, our roots, memories, and changing relationships with the places that shape us, hold us, and sometimes let us go.
My first experience with North Woods was via audiobook. The multiple narrators bring each voice to life, making the novel feel even more immersive. That said, leafing through a physical copy reveals another layer of beauty to the story. The unique formatting of each chapter—letters, journal entries, illustrations punctuating the chapters—adds a tactile dimension to the reading experience.
I finished the audiobook while working at Betley Woods during the springtime. A touching parallel brought tears to my eyes as I listened to the story of a student who found peace studying spring ephemerals and reflecting on the woods. The character imagined what the woods would have looked like if not for ax-carrying men and disease-carrying beetles and spores, reflecting that, “The only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.”
Grace van Kan
White River Steward