North Woods

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• Did this read more like a novel, or like a series of interlinked short stories? What’s the difference between the two? What are the advantages of each? Have you read any other works using this same form, like Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad? 
• Which of the stories or time periods was your favorite and why? 
• The novel offers some of the pleasures of a puzzle, with elements that readers know but characters do not (for example, painter Teale wears a hat he finds in the house—but only the reader knows that the hat belonged to bounty hunter Phelan). Did you enjoy piecing together the way the past connected to later events?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• Did you identify with any of the characters, their dilemmas, or their solutions to their problems? Which were the easiest to understand? Which were the hardest to connect to?
• One of the unspoken assumptions of the novel is that it is worthwhile to document the way centuries affect a place, particularly one that is primarily untrammeled nature. What other locations would benefit from this kind of chronicling and why?
• There are different kinds of violence in the novel. How did these episodes affect you? Are the more justified episodes of violence easier to read? 
• The novel’s plot relies on surprising interconnections between seemingly unrelated events. What similarly unlikely but significant coincidences can you trace in your own life?

3. Societal and Cultural Context

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• The novel ends by zooming away from the human perspective altogether, instead considering the north woods from the point of view of the landscape itself. How does this shift of perspective fit with contemporary concerns about the climate and environment? 
• Images of the Garden of Eden are often invoked in the novel. Why is the novel interested in the biblical story of the Fall and the expulsion from paradise?
• Why does Mason make the ghosts that haunt the north woods literal? How else does the past manifest in the present?

4. Literary Analysis

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• Why is the novel titled after the woods, rather than their human inhabitants? Does the novel have a protagonist?
• What is the symbolism of the catamount in the story? What does it mean to the various characters who encounter it?
• How do the changes to the houses in the north woods reflect the larger history of the US? Is Mason using the house as an allegory? 
• How does the novel portray sexual desire? Why are the north woods the setting for so many doomed or illicit love affairs? 
• The novel offers a lush style of prose, particularly in its descriptions of the landscape. How does Mason use sensory imagery?

5. Creative Engagement

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• Research the tradition of 19th-century landscape painting that William Henry Teale would have been working within. How does this approach to depicting the outdoors add to or detract from the mystical effect of the woods on those who see them?
• Would it be possible to write a sequel to this novel? Why or why not?

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