BookBrowse Reviews North Woods by Daniel Mason

BookBrowse:

Daniel Mason's playful, imaginative fifth work of fiction crosses centuries and genres to tell the history of one patch of forested Western Massachusetts land and its inhabitants.

"History haunts him who does not honor it." This incidental line from Daniel Mason's North Woods encapsulates the spirit of the whole. In surveying the lives and land use changes that have defined one Western Massachusetts site over four centuries, Mason recalls major groups and events in American history — the Puritans, colonial-era conflicts, slavery and abolition — as well as perennial experiences like love, escape, pride, jealousy, devotion, deception, and mental illness. As the years pass, ghosts linger, their presence manifested in unexpected ways in a creative work that also incorporates epistolary elements and biblical allusions.

The book is rather like a linked short story collection. Each chapter is set at a different time and interspersed with documents such as almanac pages, historical reports, journals, letters, photographs, and songs. The style shifts to suit the period and mimic a certain literary genre. A Puritan man and woman run away from their restrictive community to start a new life. An anonymous writer recounts a period of being held in captivity by Native people. Charles Osgood, an Englishman injured in the French and Indian War, plants an apple orchard and leaves it to his twin spinster daughters, Alice and Mary.

The Osgoods' large yellow house becomes the setting for many of the stories that follow. The catamount, a wild cat sometimes literal and sometimes legendary, is another linking element (see Beyond the Book). In one miniature tale, a slave catcher masquerading as an insurance salesman searches for a person fleeing enslavement. In another sequence, a nineteenth-century painter embarks on an illicit relationship with his friend; his nurse tries to protect his legacy by keeping the secret, but it emerges through a haunting that necessitates a séance.

Along with the Osgoods, members of the S. family become pivotal to the narrative. Readers first meet Robert S. through case notes written by his psychologist that say the young man's strange behavior can be explained by his paranoid schizophrenia. His mother, Lillian, takes him for consultations and considers a lobotomy. Later, through volunteering with a prisoner pen pal program, she nearly falls victim to a con man. In 1977, Robert's sister Helen finds a manuscript and trove of Super 8 recordings relating to his beloved woods and the "soul heirs" he believed they harbored.

Helen and Robert are among the characters who muse about what went on in the yellow house over the centuries. William Henry Teale, the Victorian painter, writes about what is known, and what he imagines, about its previous owners ("the place is rank with Time—why shouldn't I wish to scrape away the strata?"). Closer to the present day, an elderly amateur historian named Morris Lakeman stumbles upon the dilapidated residence and uses a metal detector and a published true crime report to locate evidence of human remains. What he actually finds is a surprise connection to a former owner. Nora, a woodland flora researcher whose car runs off the road nearby, hitches a ride with a peculiar local businessman who lives in the house without permission.

The natural history of New England's forests is central as the novel mourns how chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease have decimated the woods. The book also ponders how people's decisions affect the landscape. Mason presents dueling visions: a utopian future where trees are restored to life, versus a dystopian one where heat and fire threaten survival. "Succession," to refer to ecological variations or human generations, is a crucial term here.

I found it rewarding to spot biblical echoes: The fleeing Puritans enact an expulsion from Eden; the Osgood sisters have a Cain and Abel dynamic; and Teale's intimate relationship with his friend is in the tradition of King David's with Jonathan. The focus on history and myth feels somewhat at odds with the matter-of-fact reappearances of the (un)dead. Mason doesn't explain what's going on but appears to be enjoying the intellectual gymnastics, in a way that reminded me of Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10½ Chapters.

While I admired the novel's sweep and ambitious blend of forms, I felt limited emotional commitment. The historical pastiches of the early chapters, though convincing, are rather dull, making for a slow start. There is then insufficient time with certain players; longer sequences are better in that it is possible to become more involved with the characters. I was therefore most engaged with the story of the S. family, followed by Teale and the Osgood sisters. Although there is a sense of humor, my overarching impression, as with The Overstory by Richard Powers, is of cerebral experimentation. Other readers are sure to feel differently. I'll keep my ears open for National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize buzz for Mason.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in November 2023, and has been updated for the December 2023 edition. Click here to go to this issue.