Book Club Discussion Questions for North Woods by Daniel Mason

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, The Catamount and our BookBrowse Review of North Woods.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Which era of the yellow house would you most like to visit?
2. Which of its residents (permanent or temporary) would you have liked to spend more time with?
3. Novels often follow the same characters through different settings; North Woods follows the same setting through different characters. What was this reading experience like for you?
4. For some characters, the yellow house is a place of refuge and inspiration, for others, an isolated site of captivity. Discuss how the house and its remoteness affected its residents.
5. Daniel Mason employs myriad points of view, writing styles, and genres to tell this story across the centuries. How did these shifting voices affect the narrative?
6. What is the significance of the catamount?
7. The best and worst of human behaviors and experiences are on display in North Woods: love, murder, betrayal, yearning, generosity, madness, envy. What did you make of this?
8. What role do the ghosts play throughout the novel? Does this role change? Discuss.
9. How does Mason bring the local flora and fauna into the novel? What did you make of beetles and spores and seeds sharing the stage with human characters?
10. Who do you imagine the first residents of your home were? Who do you imagine will come after you?

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Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Random House Trade Paperbacks. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.