Country People by Daniel Mason

Pull up a chair by the window. The sea air is doing its thing outside, and we’ve got a story that practically begs to be savored on a slow afternoon.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason—the bestselling author of North Woods and, as many readers will tell you, one of America’s greatest living writers—comes a joyous, rollicking new novel about a family striking out into the unknown. (That unknown being Vermont, which, if you’ve ever wintered in New England, you’ll appreciate.)

Meet Miles Krzelewski. A devoted husband. A doting father famous for his outlandish bedtime stories. The proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He’s also a little lost—twelve years late on his PhD and haunted by the feeling that he’s let everyone down.

So when his wife Kate lands a visiting professorship in the deep Vermont woods, Miles decides this is his year. Naturally, he gets gloriously sidetracked.

What follows is a year tangled up with the most wonderful cast of characters: a ghostly tree surgeon, a scythe-mad biochemist, a Shakespearean temptress, and a snowflake photographer cataloguing the world’s delusions on thousands of index cards. And then there’s the local legend Miles stumbles upon—the one that might not be a legend after all.

Luminous, absurd, and deeply life-affirming, Country People is a meditation on marriage, parenthood, belief, and the quiet ways stories stitch us together.

A perfect companion for a rainy day and a warm blanket. Come linger a while—this one’s a keeper.

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