NORTH WOODS

Over a sweep of several hundred years, the novel centers on a home in Western Massachusetts and its inhabitants: from the apple-obsessed Major Osgood, father of twins Alice and Mary, to escaping slave Esther and her baby, through to a lovelorn landscape painter and his correspondence with writer Erasmus Nash, and many other fascinating characters who lived in and haunt the house.

As we move through the passage of time, we follow the cycles of nature and history, and discover a lineage of owners and their lives, and over time uncover their fates. It’s not just a novel, but a way of looking at the world, a way of processing the big-picture flow of the years, and a way of understanding the psychic connection between people and the earth. There is extraordinary ambition here, but it remains human and intimate—showcasing Mason’s incredible talent at inhabiting many different voices and genres, and layering them together into a profound meditation on our shifting relationship to the land and homes we inhabit.