Northern Forest

The new novel by the author of "The Winter Soldier" and "The Tuner". Best book of the year according to: New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Chicago Public Library, The Star Tribune, The Economist,... The Christian Science Monitor, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bookreporter. Daniel Mason's novel, which spans four centuries, is a narrative about a house lost in the forests of Western Massachusetts and about its series of inhabitants. Lovers fleeing from a Puritan settlement; a young colonist with a child, abducted by Indians; a former soldier who devoted himself to growing apple trees; twin sisters, inseparably bound by love and jealousy; an artist guarding a secret; an avid hunter whose wife hears voices (or does she?), - and many, many others. When one story ends, another begins, and this continuity resonates with the cyclicality of nature, with the changing of the seasons and ecosystems. Trees and plants are full-fledged characters in the novel, and the experiences of a bark beetle are no less significant than those of humans. This is an unusual, inventively structured, humorous and hopeful novel about the passage of time, our connection to the world, and how to see in a history of losses a history of change.