North Woods

by Daniel Mason

John Murray

 

Four centuries. A single house deep in the woods of New England. A young Puritan couple on the run. An English soldier with a fantastic vision. Inseparable twin sisters. A lovelorn painter and a lusty beetle. A desperate mother and her haunted son. A ruthless con man and a stalking panther. Buried secrets. Madness, dreams and hope.  All are connected. The dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Clever, enchanting tapestry of four hundred years worth of lives lived on one plot of land. A unique, unexpected and unputdownable read.

Epic . . . weaves a Cloud Atlas-style narrative of humanity under pressure and nature under threat’ – The Guardian

‘A little piece of magic’ – Sunday Independent

‘Enthralling . . . A timely musing on what and who are lost to history’ – The Economist

‘Mason teases out the joy and meaning in the sometimes small lives of his characters. North Woods has been heaped with praise and hype, and deservedly so. This is a book that treats life as a miracle and demands the proper awe from its readers’ –  The Times

‘Daniel Mason’s latest novel is one of those rare books that truly deserves the description “spellbinding” ‘ Observer

“Dazzling . . . a brave and original book, which invents its own form. It is both intimate and epic, playful and serious. To read it is to travel to the limits of what the novel can do.”—The Guardian (US)

“A time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic . . . Each chapter germinates its own form while sending out tendrils that entwine beneath the surface of the novel . . . As [Mason] floats through thrillers, a bit of comic noir, erotic paranormal fiction and other genres, it’s hard to imagine there is anything he can’t do . . .”—The Washington Post

“Gorgeous . . . a tale of ephemerality and succession, of the way time accrues in layers, like sedimentary soil.”—NPR

“Brilliantly combines the granularity of realism with the timeless, shimmering allure of myth. . .Sui generis fiction . . . The forest and the trees: Mason keeps both in clear view in his eccentric and exhilarating novel.”—The New York Times Book Review

‘Daniel Mason’s latest novel is one of those rare books that truly deserves the description “spellbinding” ‘ Observer

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