North Woods

A young couple escapes from a Puritan colony and begins a new life in a cabin lost in the woods of Western Massachusetts. The lovers look for solitude in the wilderness, but instead their home becomes a haven for remarkable human and inhuman residents—who will take turns living there over many decades. Among them is a dashing English soldier who left the battlefield and became an apple farmer; old twin sisters torn apart by passion and jealousy; a sinister fraudster; a love-crazed, mad beetle; ghosts guarding the peace of a crumbling house; a predatory panther; and many others.

“Northwoods” is an amazingly inventive novel filled with love and madness, humor and hope. Thanks to the cyclical nature of story, nature, and even language, it shows how closely we are all connected—to our past, the surrounding world, and one another.

This is the best book of the year according to leading book reviewers worldwide: New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Chicago Public Library, The Star Tribune, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bookreporter.

Daniel Mason is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a recipient of an Arts National Endowment Fellowship. A practicing psychiatrist and professor of clinical psychiatry, he teaches at Stanford University. His works have been translated into 28 languages and adapted for opera and dramatic theater.