The North Woods by Daniel Mason (audiobook)

 genre: historical fiction/magical realism

This atmospheric novel takes us into the dark woods and sunny orchards of Western Massachusetts.  Instead of following one particular family from its beginnings in a place to the present day - we follow a HOME.  A place.  Four walls and then some more, housing generations of people in rural America as ideas and evens come and go.  The flora and fauna, the smells and the weather - all of it both changing and creating change, a part of the house and its environment as well as the backdrop to the kind of human drama that keeps a story moving along.

What a unique book!  What an excellent audio production!  I was completely all in until the magical realism began and I wasn't prepared.  I hate spoilers but I'm wondering if I might have appreciated that turn if I'd been more prepared for it.  By the end, I really leaned IN to the magical realism and it made the ending so much more powerful for me, so I think that particular compliant is just personal preference.  I loved all the different readers and different "primary sources" that made up the history of the house in the woods.  

Historical fiction, botany and ecology, true crime, literary fiction - if you like your books to have a sprinkle of everything, this one might be worth trying.

content warning: a few sexual scenes