Daniel Mason

North Woods

​

An ever present character in the novel North Woods is a house, set in the forests of Massachusetts. Other characters are its four centuries of human inhabitants—often odd, dysfunctional, or downright deranged, their stories quirky but banal. The main character of the novel is nature, in its myriad manifestations, and although it’s relegated to the narrative interludes between human life spans, it bursts from these meager pages with its full capacity for fecundity and profusion. Whether uber sensual beetle sex, a fungus stealthily devouring a forest, or an apple tree feeding on a cadaver, nature remains dynamic and relentless. The story captures nature’s minutiae and also its accelerated-motion macro level oscillations in its cinematographic final pages.

​