Poured Over Double Shot: Daniel Mason and Paul Murray

By Jenna Seery / September 21, 2023 at 6:00 am

Daniel Mason’s North Woods follows one house in the woods of New England as it passes through families (with inhabitants both human and not) and endures natural and human history. Mason joins us to talk about how he connected with his setting, writing a novel covering a large timespan, playing with form and more.

Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray chronicles the saga of a family in a post-economic-collapse Ireland. Murray joins us to talk about the cultural background of his novel, writing a dysfunctional family, the influences of Joyce and Faulkner and more.

Listen in as these authors speak separately with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.  

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.           

Featured Books (Episode):
North Woods by Daniel Mason
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Ulysses by James Joyce
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Full Episode Transcript
Miwa Messer
I’m Miwa Messer, I’m the producer and host of Poured Over and North Woods is one of these novels. It is so special. And it is so weird, and it is so wild. And it’s gorgeous. Every single sentence is gorgeous. And Daniel Mason was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2020. For a collection of stories, A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth, I first started reading Daniel with The Piano Tuner, which he wrote when he was 26. And in medical school, writing a novel in medical school, and it was huge at that. This was what, 2002 And it was huge. It was huge in hardcover. It was huge in paperback, we just, this book, kept going and going and going. And then there was another novel after that, and then The Winter Soldier, so five books altogether now with North Woods, right?

Daniel Mason
I think so.

And I have to say, I heard about North Woods, actually, from an editor who had lost the auction, she said, by the way, you need to know about this book, and she was not wrong. And it’s set in Western Massachusetts. And we’re going to talk about what you did in this book. But I was shocked to learn that you grew up in Palo Alto, California. This is not your territory. So how did we end up in Western Massachusetts?

During the pandemic, lots of people picked up and went somewhere else for a time, we came and spent part of the time with family who live in upstate New York. And then I began stories, you know, spent kind of long days walking around the woods there and just started thinking about seeing all these old houses, seeing all these old farms, and walls and wondering about the people before so that kind of kicked off the idea for the story. And then I had a sort of fellowship, take time off from work, and we came out here.

And when you say here, Western Massachusetts was here, or was it upstate?

Western Massachusetts.

Okay, so you have dipped a toe in the place. But as someone who I shouldn’t say I was feral, but we were close, you know, it was a lot of running around in the woods and building things and getting into spots and whatnot. The way you capture the landscape around this house, because you build an entire novel, around a piece of land, and a house, and all of the people who end up inhabiting it at some point or another, starting essentially, in the 1600s, right. And you bring us up to the present day, and it’s a great idea. Everyone gets their turn. But it’s a lot you I mean, this is 400 years of human history, in one place in one house. So you’re walking around in the woods, you’re out of your natural element at Stanford and teaching and everything else. So are you mapping this out? Is this the kind of book you map out? What happens in the plot? Or are you starting with a voice because you have a cast?

Yeah, it’s funny with any book, I always try to think about how it actually began, like, what was sort of the kernel that that started. And this time, I remember and it’s such a simple thought it’s like a funny that I hadn’t thought about it this much before. But seeing these old houses, I guess, growing up in California, living in California, right, and most of the places I’ve lived in in California are younger than I am. Right. And there’s a few, there’s on campus housing at Stanford, I suppose that, you know, people are there before me, I don’t even know who lived there before me, it’s not very romantic. You’re thinking all the sense of seeing these homes have been around for such a long time, you know, at least in terms of sort of American history. And thinking like there must have been so many stories, thinking that people were born in these houses and fell in love these houses have died in these houses all that had happened, and how little I knew about places I’ve lived in and how little most people must know about the places that they’ve lived in and how there are clues when you start looking and you find things in the ground, you find things in the walls, but there’s this mystery and that sort of that kind of suggested stories, and I just finished the collection of short stories, I love the short story is a form of pretty intimidated by the idea of starting a novel again. And so I thought, well, maybe I’ll write a short story, you know, series of short stories set in this house and think they will connect them will be a place. And so that was that was the genesis it’s an ideas of time periods will be fun to think about along the way, but not how they would be connected. So that was really a surprise that I think, made the writing of it much more fun.

And I have to say the stories and I do want to go back to the story collection for a second because that’s 15 years of work. I mean, you didn’t suddenly sit down and create all of the stories in the collection, putting that title and the scope of the work next to North Woods, right? Okay, and let’s, we can go through all of the books, you can see the spine, you can see the spine of all of the things that interest you, you take this history of a place, and of us, right. And the characters that you find that ended up bringing us through these stories. I mean, the connection runs pretty deeply. I mean, and you this is, what 21 years into your writing career. Five books in and no matter where you it could be 1914. Austria, it could be Burma in the 1800s. And yet, I can see exactly how we got to north woods in terms of where your brain works, but you’re not the only practicing doctor. I mean, I realize you teach but you are a doctor. And Abraham Verghese is in a similar situation. Khaled Hosseini, William Carlos Williams, I know I’m missing something. Oh, Chekov. What’s the connection, though, between medicine and writing fiction, because none of you is a slouch when it comes to putting words on the page?

I think everyone’s, mine has changed, I would say, that’s been that’s been kind of interesting. So I think that, in the beginning, starting out, in some ways, you know, there’s this, this sort of wonderful quote, line from Chekov, I’m gonna paraphrase it — writing is his wife and medicine is his mistress and any sort of escapes from one to the other. And I think it’s writing is the mistress and sort of humanity, in his mind is the mistress. And I do remember beginning, you know, being sort of in medical school, being in the science, learning the science and feeling like a lot of the kind of human story that was there was not there. And there was the opportunity to kind of think about it from the things that when encounters for the first time as a medical student, are not prepared to encounter at the age of 23, 24. And wanting to write, and so this is sort of the sense of this escape. Then, as time went on there, you know, there been periods of times where I’ve been working full time working part time not working with a doctor at all, just right. And so it’s sort of it’s kind of gone back and forth. Now, I feel like I sort of settled into a kind of equilibrium with it. Well, you know, I work part of the year, I’m not a full time doctor, you know, I tend to work in the hospital. So there’s a month where I can write and then I have periods of months work for busy in hospital. And those feel like different worlds in some ways, but in some ways, and one’s very curious about people’s internal worlds. That’s a similarity across the two disciplines. There’s, I think, interesting, sort of clues, material clues, like a lot of times when a patient, I can’t tell you what’s going on, he kind of looked for the material world, especially very important to me, early on in my writing kind of now it’s maybe because I’m a psychiatrist, one pays attention to internal worlds. So there’s so there’s been an interplay that’s that said, I do find sometimes i that, you know, medicine because it’s explanatory, I sometimes feel kind of can get in the way of my fiction, and then I have to take sort of a step back because, again, I mean, as a doctor, you’re trying to remove some of the mystery you’re trying to get at what’s happening? Or is that something I very much want to keep in the fiction?

I mean, they’re both storytelling in a way, right? Because you’re getting a human being’s history, when you’re when you’re working with them in a medical capacity, right? So you’ve got to ask all of the questions, and hope that you’re getting answers that are truthful, or at least accurate. So the idea that you’ve got to build sort of a persona, right? Whether it’s a persona of the situation, I mean, certainly your patient is your patient, but you’ve got to put the context to a person’s life. And it seems like the overlap is pretty significant. And not in like you’re drawing from your patients’ labs. I’m certainly not suggesting that. But just the innate curiosity behind what makes us make the decisions that we make, or because you’ve got some characters who make some really wild decisions, I’m thinking of a pair of twin sisters. Actually, I loved the way you sort of balanced the tenor and the forward movement of the story with these people because I could not believe some of the people I met in this book, you know, you said you were surprising yourself, as you sort of worked out the story. But were you working in a linear fashion? I mean, did you really start sort of early on? Or did you build the pieces that you knew you wanted to write about first and then sort of work your way backwards, because this is a really cohesive bond book that also has some lyrics. It has some song lyrics. It has some poetry. And it’s got some illustrations, which I quite liked. I didn’t know what to expect. Let’s put it that way. I had a basic idea. I knew you’d written a novel about 400 years in the history of a house and a piece of land. That’s what I knew. And I sort of read it blind. And this was so much fun. It was so much fun to read. And I just How did you structure this thing and how did you get your hands around it?

Well, I’m glad it came out that way. I didn’t know where it was going. And I think that you mentioned 15 years for the short story collection. Those stories over a long time. And then the novel before this Winter Soldier like it was published in 2018. And began in like, 2003, 2004 I ran this really long experience of rewriting and North Woods is very different. So I knew that I wanted to do begin at the beginning. And I had the idea of the first chapter that that there was going to be this Puritan sort of this anti scarlet letter this Puritan, a couple of elopes, escapes from the colony and runs off into the mountain and builds a house— it’s very short chapter, but I love the idea. Unlike other things, like it was originally going to be something else, it was going to originally be a lot bigger, but I loved just sort of just like this idea of these kind of, sort of Adam and Eve like characters become kind of like founding the founders of the house.

There’s also a little bit I mean, I had a couple of moments with the orchard and some other things where it’s like, okay, yeah, it works. Metaphor works. It totally works. But I was giggling a little bit as I was reading because I was like, yeah…

I think like the authentic reference is like there were times I you know, tell myself we will let’s, let’s back off, a little careful. But at the same at the same time, it is this this story, which of course is such a deep part of us to kind of, you know, to feel it to feel it hauntings, the book can help.

Oh, I think it definitely does. And also you balance it, like the characters balance it out. I mean, it’s not, it was kind of a fun Easter egg when I thought about it in a way. And it would just pop up in ways where I would just okay, yeah, yeah. Right. You have a very wry sense of humor, you let your characters be who they’re going to be and some of the characters have a rough go of it. So please don’t misunderstand me. It’s nice to have those moments where you’re like, okay, you know what? Yeah, I am actually laughing at you. And I am not laughing with you. You have a fake medium pop up at one point. You hit all of these sorts of beats of Americana.

The fake medium in particular, that whole chapter, it’s kind of Burlesque and it’s just this kind of wild show and I remember actually even editing it. You know, one point my editors and maybe should you tone this down a bit, kind of tone the raunchiness down, tone the wildness down and so I did I toned it down. And then we looked at again and we said, Now let’s maybe turn it back up again. Because I you know, there is that there’s that kind of vaudeville moment in our history where things are over the top and I just also you’re speaking of this fake medium. Anastasia is her stage name and she’s come to this house to perform a kind of seance where she learns that she’s hearing without giving anything, anything, something kind of naughty, that’s going on. You don’t see yourself as a person who’s very much in the flesh and kind of loves the physical things in life. So she was such fun to write. She’s living in the same place that sort of the Puritan forbear. So the first off, and you just see the expanse of the different kinds of people who have inhabited this country and inhabited these places.

Well, and also watching the change in the culture, right, and you do some very clever, like, we learned something about the founder of this orchard. That’s good and he’s fighting in a war. And when you figure out what his story is, and you’d do it sort of with a couple of lines here and a couple of lines there, you never sort of lay out what has actually, but puzzling it out. was really satisfying and having all of the pieces connect and the way the story folds back on itself. As we move forward isn’t really satisfying. There were so many moments where I was like, Oh, hello. Yeah, oh, I see who you are. And either you turned out to be kind of who I expected, or, huh. No one saw this coming. Because you’re the one writing but it’s a really interesting way to tell an epic story of us. At one point you actually have above Like the boll weevil that’s eating chestnuts. Is it the chestnut?

Yeah, there’s the beetle scene I think you’re thinking of is a Dutch a beetle that carries Dutch elm disease. The chestnuts are another chapter, there’s sort of two play chapters.

And I grew up in New England. And, you know, I remember hearing stories about what the forests were like, or what, you know, sort of also legendarily where I grew up, the cod ran really hard in the harbor. And you could just walk out with a bucket and grab all the cod you wanted. And all of the lobster you want. I mean, again, this sort of endemic storyline of resources that, of course, got over fished sort of almost immediately. But the idea that you can’t separate these people or this house, from the landscaping, that as time passes, people add to the house, and it gets bigger and a little weirder.

Right. Yeah, you think of all the history is behind this, and this is the third physical house, has its own history. And there’s this particular way, as you know, in New England, of building a house were absolutely not used to in California, I feel like people want a new house to kind of knock the house down and, build a new house. So in order to have a new house, Everything’s new. Whereas here, you know, whether it’s and I’ve read different things about this, you know, sort of like the, it’s the New England character that doesn’t sort of throw anything away, preserves things. And so the idea is, if you had a house that was there, and you bought the house from the seventh, most of maybe 18th century, and you want to expand it, you don’t knock everything down, you build another, you build an annex, and you connect the two of them. And if you want to make it bigger, maybe you grab the barn, and they had this whole way of moving parts of the house around this is one of the chapters of the book talked about this, but what is the moving parts of the house, like literally cutting off parts of the house, putting them on logs, rolling them, sticking them on to another part of the house. And so you develop these sprawling house and you see them all over New England, where each part of the house represents a different time period, which really is just such a wonderful metaphor for, like a book also made like literally a new chapter, a new group of people who are living in a new part of that new part of the house, that was very compelling. That idea when I kind of recognized that I actually can see, when I look at these old buildings around me, it’s not just one old building, this is this is actually a story, I can see at least three, four stages in this house. But then there’s this other side, you mentioned the, the beetle, where there’s this nonhuman side as well. And that was an idea that I wanted to pursue pretty early on in the book, you know, the sense of what, you know, how, how much can I have the nonhuman the, like a compelling part of the plot, because nature has always been setting for me, I love writing about nature, but it’s always been something that a person is appreciating. Yeah, all the kind of good stuff that one encounters in plot, you know, like, the romance, murder, disaster tragedy, and that all happens, it is happening constantly in the natural world. And so I was thinking a lot about that. And so each house isn’t continuously occupied. There are times when somebody dies, and somebody else comes in. And at different stages in the book, as you mentioned, those are you know, very importantly, as the American cover shows, is a panther who inhabited that house for a while. There’s a beetle. I mean, there’s a fungus which knocks down the chestnuts, you know, I kind of wanted to show that drama, explore, like, what’s it like to explore the drama the natural world, not just seen, from human eyes.

It makes me think of Andrea Barrett’s work. Certainly not that there are direct parallels, but the way she sits in the natural world, and the characters really are not ever separate from it. And the world itself is a character in its own right. I mean, I love the idea that you’re putting context to people in a different way, and to be so connected to this piece of property and even to be able to mark time as well, like, So and so hit hard times. So they sold X amount of acres to the state to make a state park. And suddenly they were only down to six acres. I mean, but it is a really interesting way to mark time, or like the chimney’s fallen down, or you pull in a character from New York. He’s part of that sort of Jimmy Breslin, crime writer. And I know Jimmy Breslin was much more newspaperman than a crime writer, but it’s that kind of outsized personality, that New York newspaperman personality who gets wind of history comes up and he’s reporting on it and this is sort of the 50s, late 50s, early 60s kind of thing.

Yeah, he is he has a little bit of that style, probably. He’s been writing for a while. I have a sort of secret timeline of the book that is not in the book. And I think he’s around that.

Okay. But, you know, he’s decided he’s figured something out. And we, as readers actually have more of the story does, which I, there are a lot of touches like that. Throughout where it seems to me that you just trust us, you trust the reader to know where we are in time and space with you, because you’ve grounded us in this piece of property. Yeah, it’s really hard to do. So I mean, mentally, you know exactly where you are at any given point in this house or on the on the land, right. Like, you know, as you’re writing.

As I was going along, you mentioned Charles Osgood, the man who, who builds, he was kind of key for me, because I started out with these very early stories. And then it was September, and it arrived in New England, and I was working on his story. And I realized, like, of course, I’m working on a story. Like, as I drive down the road, there’s apples like, you know, falling from the trees around me, like, of course, this chapter is about apples, like I can’t write a winter chapter in September, I can’t write a spring chapter in December. So originally, I had imagined that the book would be chronological. But then at that point, you know, we chose Goodman, his daughters come next, as twins that you mentioned, I thought, What happens if I try to write not just the 400 years, but once I write sort of through the season, so because the first part was June, and now each chapter will kind of, you know, be written in the season that they’re written in. So I didn’t know where it was going. I just knew that like, when December was going to come to an end, I’d have to begin my January chapters, when January came to an end to begin my February chapters, and some of those I had an idea like, well, April’s gonna have to be like the 1980s or so. And it’s going to be springtime. And so it’s gonna have to be a spring chapter that takes place in a relatively modern setting. So maybe it’s gonna be good for this guy, who was a metal detector. So I’ve kind of been thinking about for a while, come about to discover stuff, right. But he know what he would do. And that’s been very, that’s very different from anything else that I’ve worked on, where I kind of sketch things out ahead of time. So this was fun, because all of a sudden, I like hit a new chapter. And I wasn’t sure I was going to end but then some character from a previous chapter would show up and do something that surprised me. You know, it’d be sitting there in my room and sort of chuckling to myself, you know, are surprised, by the way this person sort of seemed to appear kind of bad. I mean, literally good. We’re talking about a house like, literally appear out of the woodwork and entered the book. So since then, I decided I’m not going to, Although who knows, I’ll probably change my mind at some point, but like to sketch a book beforehand and know where it’s going. As I look back at that, like that was the way The Winter Soldier was, and it sort of feels like I was kind of coloring something in that I’ve already drawn just a little, looks exciting. And then just kind of starting anew. This felt like the story had the characters themselves had more agency, they sort of felt like, you know, people who would surprise me, and that’s fun.

You’re also not separating anyone from their history. And I’m thinking specifically about a couple of points where the story folds back. And as you said, someone pops up, or you realize the connection from one character to previous. There are lots of moments like that. But this idea that you’re using history, and you’ve I mean, you do it in all of your books, but the idea that history shapes, what we’re reading in that moment, like you just can’t separate the two you cannot pretend that the history didn’t happen, even if you don’t know the history by the letter. It still happened, it still made us who we are, and you’re constantly doing this. And at one point, you wanted to be an archaeologist.

All right. Yeah, long time ago.

Well, okay, but don’t you kind of get to be an archaeologist when you’re writing novels. I mean, yeah. You’ve dug out the history of 400 years of a place that I wouldn’t be surprised if you could walk into the woods somewhere in Western Mass and find this house that you invented right in this orchard. Next to the woods that you’ve invented, but are you always thinking about the history? As you write are you just character first and then whatever happens, happens? I mean, did you spend 14 years researching The Winter Soldier or did you just sort of get caught up?

I spent 14 years having trouble with The Winter Soldier. That’s what happened. I did. I mean, one thing that’s different now is now I’m 47. I started The Winter Soldier when I was in my early 30s. What one can carry in one’s mind in one’s early 30s when you do historical research is very different than what one can carry, in your late 40s. So I In some ways, I think my religion certainly tripped me The piano tuner. I remember doing all this research on the Anglo Burmese wars and, having dates and names, and it’s something that I truly couldn’t do now I have to take all sorts of notes, but in some ways, I think it’s sort of forced me in this book, you know, even though each of the periods have has their research, because they’re kind of snapshots are kind of windows into a particular experience. I didn’t have to completely understand the time period or historical framework in order to write them and it really lifted the burden of historical research off of it. So I think in some ways, I mean, it probably a lot of writers feel this way. Like you’re always trying, if you’re not writing about a world you’re intimately familiar with, you’re always trying to sneak by and trick the reader, you know, that, you know, like, everything that I know about pottery is in the book, there’s no more expert in like, every, I really don’t know very much about it, but my paragraph, it’s in the book, but the hope is that it’s like creates a enough of a world that the reader trust, like, gosh, okay, this must be the way they made the pottery. Of course, not important. What’s important in the book is the woman falls in love with someone who’s a potter and something tragic happens and, you know, parts break easily, you know, like, there’s, that’s the things that that’s important to their historical research is just enough, I feel to kind of make you feel comfortable, that you’re going to suspend disbelief and remain in that world for a bit.

Well, it’s also stuff like, you know, I was talking about the medium earlier, because it’s such a fun chapter. But she’s there because the man who now owns the house is trying to turn it into sort of a hunting lodge. And he’s really hoping that Teddy Roosevelt come stay at the house and make his lodge famous and there’s a stuffed Catamount in the house as well. And, you know, it’s just all of these little bits of detail, but I did I laughed when you had this guy saying, Carl saying, oh, yeah, well, I wrote a letter to Teddy Roosevelt’s people. And they said he would think about coming.

Right? And of course, the wife’s worried because she’s hearing these scandalous noises, right? She’s worried about what’s going to happen if Roosevelt hears the scandalous noises.

And yet we know that Roosevelt is never ever, ever going to set foot you know, the stories we tell ourselves and you know, you are you’re talking about Life and Death and legacy and memory and what we know and what we believe to be true, you there’s one heartbreaking chapter in there that I was a little mad, I was a little mad because my heart got broken. There’s a painter and a poet, but the cast, it’s really big. There is a new set of characters pretty much for every chapter, because also to when we meet people as children, obviously, they’re not the same as adults. So they really are, right, entirely new characters in a way. Who made the cut? How did you decide who made the cut? Who was allowed to stay? Because you could have gone any number of directions?

Sure. And that’s right. So some people will reemerge and some don’t, and some reemergence airy very subtly. But there’s some I think it Osgood, for example, in his daughters, in part, just because of the size of their personalities, wouldn’t me go like they’re insistent people and they’re such fun to write that Any kind of opportunity to bring them back in was something that I wanted, that I want to do one thing, I think that even some ways I think about this book, like I couldn’t have written this when I was younger, in part because sort of one of the observations that I found through the remarkable things about now, having sort of spanned, I guess, kind of like a generation in the sense that people who I know were very little children are now adults. So that’s a new experience for me. And whereas theoretically, I could have told you, when I was 23, that of course, of course, you know, someone in the younger, they get older, that seems to be sort of a natural state of affairs. But there’s really something magical about seeing, for instance, friends, children now as grown-ups, and especially magical seeing them, after 16 years of not having seen them. And all of a sudden, the brain sort of tries to connect these two people. And you realize so much has gone on in the meantime. And so I just I love that element of surprise. And in life. I love going to reunions, I’m kind of a shy person. So I like the idea of sort of talking everybody to reunion. That’s a little overwhelming, but like, I just love the effect of going to like a college or high school, especially high school reunion, sort of extraordinary, like coming back and like seeing these people here fast forwarding through life of 20 years. And so in a way there’s this this is like there’s a series of reunions that occur in the book. Whereas you see somebody when there’s when they’re a little girl, maybe just peering into a room in the case of one of the characters and disappears into the room to see her dad who’s the guy who’s building the hunting lodge to see him at this sort of ridiculous seance. We don’t know that she’s going to be key but then we find out later on that she sort of a central character in the book, but 40 years will have elapsed by the time she reappears again, as a as important character. I love the way when jumps forward through time. And I think that that’s something I’ve experienced. I hadn’t had sort of until kind of recently,

Literary influences for you seem to range pretty widely. I mean, as I was researching for the show, obviously, we’ve got the whole Heart of Darkness, Piano Tuner sort of parallel, you read a lot of Saramago, Antonio Lobo, and tune is for when you were working in a foreign country. And then certainly The Winter Soldier, their its own sort of World War One parallels, but not quite. This book, North Woods, feels like it pulls from a lot of different places. And I’m wondering if we can talk literary influences for a second, because the overall narrative voice is very controlled, it’s often very funny. It’s really precise, in a way that just opens up the world. Right? You just give us a lot of runway and the sentences are just. But it feels like it pulls from a million different directions.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you one thing you mentioned, I’m glad you like the humor of it. I mean, that’s, that’s always a hard thing, right? Because to tell a joke, it’s not funny. It’s kind of painful to tell something that you want to be scared. It’s not that scary. Yes, not so bad, but tell jokes and it’s tough, but at the same time when I was writing it, I mean, I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t say Piano Tuner or certainly not Far Country, that book that tries to not have humor in it at all. Winter Soldier, there’s more of that. And you know, maybe it’s as the world itself seems a little more troubled, I couldn’t sort of sit down the book is a lot about climate change and climate changing around the house. And it’s very painful to think about it, I couldn’t just like sit and write that in through the dark sense of way, it seems like things are going, but to find some kind of lightness in it felt so important. And so that drove a lot of it. But I think also, this is kind of appreciation as just as I’ve read, all the books I love are actually really funny. And they’re not like Madame Bovary is not thought of as a funny book. Usually, it’s not talked, but it’s really funny. A lot of Tolstoy is really funny. I think there’s people who have inspired me to think sort of structurally outside the box like David Mitchell really funny. Yeah. And it can be deeply dark, but at the same time, really funny. And so I think that’s one set of influences there, the New England writers. So like, you know, you can’t write about New England without being influenced by Thoreau and not just his attention to the natural world. But also even this kind of chronological structure. The book is something that that is inspired by Walden inspired by his journals. And it’s wonderful publication. So he kept journals. And then at different points in his life, they published spring, summer, autumn, winter journals of his but both the way they were published and still published a book published back then, as well, was that they would have an entry from say, like September 19, but it would be 1843. And then the next entrance entry would be September 20,1854. So it wasn’t the year that mattered. It was the date that mattered. And so you get just this progression through the year. It’s nonfiction, but I loved it. I loved Hawthorne’s journals also are just wonderful to read. And in some ways, Hawthorne’s fiction as I find sometimes difficult, and you know, because of the next century style, it’s, it’s, you know, hard and ornate. And, but his journals are fresh, and, you know, filled with ideas for his own fiction, and he feels very distinct, very alive and modern about them. And then, I think also for this, other influences were nonfiction, or, you know, sort of non traditional literary, up to like, I love weird texts, I love songs. So these have these, this, these songs that are actually older than the period that they’re written to this family has a tradition of writing songs that goes back hundreds of years, and they sort of like write these songs together. And that’s based on a style of song that was sort of prevalent in England, but 100 years before the family is actually starts writing it. And I love them. There’s some wonderful ones that I teach and, and so thought I’d try and be able to try this out myself seemed a lot of fun. You know, crime novels, you mentioned the crime writer. So Pulp Fiction, like the idea that there’s someone that writing is really gripping, it’s not it’s not. I don’t think that could write a full novel built Pulp Fiction. I certainly couldn’t write a full song novel by the chance to kind of play around with it and have fun with it and sort of see like what is my language sound like in this in this very different tone? He’s like, kind of, you know, trying on a different kind of English. And so that was really influential.

You do a lot with a line here, three lines there, it doesn’t always have to be that thing. It’s just kind of like, Alright, I’m just gonna drop this. I’m gonna keep going. It’s such a, there’s, I’m laughing too when I’m thinking about the guy with the metal detector who you’ve just got this one line that suggests there was a lot of weirdness before he gets there because he finds a pantry that’s full of canned beans, almost like bomb shelter, food, right. Like there’s no perishables, right thing. And when you know who’s been there, right? Before this guy, it makes perfect sense. And you’re like, Well, he was trying, right? You get these layers and layers and layers. So you’re sitting down with these characters, you’ve just told us that they’re sort of revealing themselves to you, as you’re writing, so you kind of have to give up control. But then you write these sentences where clearly you don’t give up control. And they’re beautiful. But writing and rewriting how much of the writing is rewriting how much of this was just sort of, okay, I got the thing that I need.

Yeah, it really depended on the chapter. So like, the song, the songs, for instance, where there’s a lot of rewriting, you know, like, just trying to get the rhymes and other characters, you know, then there’s some challenges like, like you mentioned, the twins, their story spans a long period of time. Oh, yes, it does. And so there’s, there’s a challenge. I think it’s just writers challenge of condensation. In that chapter, like, how do we get from them being little girls into them being very old lady, you know that I remember that was one of the chapters that I didn’t finish. And it’s a lot of months. And I had to go back later on to kind of work through other chapters, like for some reason, the voice, you know, felt very comfortable. So Morris, Lakeman, the metal Detectorist. I think in some ways, like I’d spent all this time writing in different historical periods, and trying to imagine the history and trying to incorporate the bit of research that I’ve done, to all of a sudden, hit this guy in the foot, you know, 80 to 90 days, and at night, essentially a contemporary story, who has my world, here’s my streets, I could just kind of be him. And imagine what it would like to be like to him. He was also very expensive person kind of loves the world, despite some bad things that have happened to him. And so he’s just sort of omnivorous. And what was wonderful is that sometimes removing something from a book is hard, including everything. But he’s somebody who just has this appetite. He loves birds. He loves finding things in the ground. Yeah, he, he finds the cans in the house that we know have the sort of dark kind of story. He’s like up, I’ll eat them. They look good to me. I’ll have them. It just kind of rolls with it. So someone like that. Just, you know, it’s fun to be with. It’s kind of like be in conversation with someone and you just kind of want to let them talk and not even saying anything yourself. So he was relatively easier. So it was a mix, I guess.

Yeah. And Morris really likes to talk, we meet Morris when he’s practicing a speech.

Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a great speech.

It’s a great speech. Morris doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. And again, like the fact that we actually do know more than this wide range of voices. Yeah, it is part of the fun. Because I know I said this earlier in the show, but I always felt like I was really grounded in the story that I never lost my place in what was happening. And again, 400 years, big cast, lots of things happen. We’re not just sitting under a tree watching the grass grow, and the house get built. And all of this, I mean, a lot happens in this book. And it’s such a delight to be grounded in these people and their shared history, and all of the things they don’t know,

Literally grounded, it’s like a furniture store, right? Like, what’s in the ground at this place. That’s like what he’s going to do. They all kind of come and, you know, different character remarks at a certain point, they a couple characters. Like there’s a lot of bodies around here. But of course, there’s a lot of bodies everywhere. I mean, that’s what history is. There’s bodies all around. And this is one particular house that has, you know, probably a few more bodies than usual.

Sounds like it? Yeah.

But who knows, maybe not, you know, who knows what’s outside right now. So

I want to dance around the ending a little bit because obviously we’re not going to spoil it but it was fantastic. It was organic. It was exactly what I needed. As I was finishing this book, did you now, this is where you were going. I mean, obviously, we need to get to a point where you can say sort of fit. Right? But it’s gorgeous. The way this book ends, there’s a device that you use. Yeah, that’s really good. When did you figure that out? Okay, because the device does pop a little earlier too. And it’s like, yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah. And I’m wondering, as we’re getting denser, I try not to give things away. I mean, like, there’s there, it brings in a couple of things early on, I mean, at that point, that was happening. So anyway, that’s what the book was about. And that stories that seem to have been last time I read are reappearing. But there’s a grand reappearance at the end of the book by a character we think has long been long gotten in the way. And that was a surprise to me. And that was one of the moments that I mentioned, where I’m sitting there, and I’m like, Oh, this makes me so happy that he’s back. And I get to see him again. And I get to imagine what would this be like for him? Here, you know, it’s like, see this, when you haven’t seen in a long time, not only which I’ve seen them again, but also putting them into a new situation, and just like wondering, what are they going to do in this new world. And so that was a surprise, but up until I had thought it might run through even farther than it actually runs? That was one possibility. And then, I think when I kind of got to that last month, and I know that last that last bit, it began to feel like no, this is where things are gonna wrap up.

It felt really right. It just it felt really, really right. So hello, confused listeners. Apologies, just go read North Woodsbecause I wasn’t entirely sure where you are going, but I knew I was willing to follow you. And when I realized, what exactly was it, and honestly, it’s not like, you don’t know, sort of as you’re coming into the homestretch again, I laughed out loud, I had a great I was just like, Okay, this is really audacious. This is really, this is a great choice. Of course, it’s this with these people. Yeah, I’m smiling, just thinking about it. I really am. It’s the exuberance of it. And again, the audacity. I mean, it’s not something I would have having read the earlier work, it’s not something I would have expected, necessarily. You’re a lot looser on the page in this book.

I think it felt that way. It was more fun to the other ones. I think, for that reason. There’s something in women rights, like when, like, you know, these ideas, I want to write him. And then of course, I’m like, looking for a way to tell the story. And so sure, we’re all writers like walking around with these ideas. And you’re like, what’s the way to tell this one? Yeah. And there’s some ideas, every few years of bringing it out and try it this way. Try it that way. And this happened to be if it felt like this, this structure that kind of allowed for a certain amount of fun, exuberance and expansiveness. They felt very different to me than some previous things that I’ve written. I mean, especially, my second book was very contained. And I think that was sort of a lesson to me to contained. Because I couldn’t do much with that I sort of set these terms up, the strictures were too intense. And I’ve always had that in mind since then, sort of trying to create worlds that kind of allow for an expansiveness.

Do you think you’re going to stick with the present day for a little bit? Or are you just going to keep doing your thing, because you do the way you connect history and people and place? And I mean, that’s what literature is supposed to do, right? Like, I get really excited when I have a novel in front of me that just does. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the longest thing in the world, or it can be or it can be short. I just, I want the world on page, which is what I get when I read you. But I mean, it changes when you’re talking about the present day.

Yeah, yeah, originally thought, this was fun, like, especially the chapter like Morris’s chapter where it’s free, it’s in the present tense after do a lot of research, I can just kind of expand into things, I should really try that again, and just to will be like to set a book now. And so I began something, and then I was kind of drawn back into historical story. And that kind of caught myself. There’s a long way of saying it’s like, I’m kind of trying to figure out what to do next. But one of the tensions I think you rightly point out is that there’s something wonderful about writing in the world that one knows, and there’s a kind of freedom that allows, but at the same time, I’m just kind of drawn to these different tones, these older rhythms, these strange moments in history that kind of allow us to see what’s going on now.

I’ll say, okay, because more than once people have described your writing is old fashioned. And I’m like, well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like, not everyone has to be Robert Coover. Right, like, tell the story that suits the people in the moment and the writer I mean, everyone, that’s the beauty of narrative voice, right? Like you find the thing. And sometimes you get it on the first swing the way you did with The Piano Tuner, like I still, I know I keep coming back to this, but you were in medical school writing a novel. That’s great. Yeah, it’s totally great. And you were in medical… I still, I’m having a moment, just now, I don’t really like to email when I’m on the phone.

But I do I also do now. I mean, I would say that not to like put my 23 year old self down at all. But like, I did, I wrote that book, then sort of in, you know, stolen hours. And then it took eight years to write a book that’s like, half the length of that one. Okay, doing that full time. So like, the way inspiration comes is totally bizarre to me. And then it was like 14 years for the next one. So like, clearly hear this, sometimes they’re just they’re certain structure. So like, why the engineer came out of me more easily than certainly than the next two books did and like, why is that the case? And I think about that, because of course, it like it affects my days. And I think part of it is to structure that book. It’s a travel book, it’s a book seen through a character who’s experiencing the world for the first time. So he’s as innocent as we are. But I also think that I was just like, you’re talking about that exuberance, like, I was also just excited. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never written more than, like a 10 page essay in college. And so all of a sudden to have written 11 pages was thrilling. And then 12 was thrilling. And so that kind of like, caught me up and pulled me along, and it didn’t feel like work. And it felt like he’s stolen hours. I think all that helped in that moment. And then next book comes along, and all of a sudden, it’s kind of a job. And I’m trying something different. And I pick a structure that’s not as easy. And so sort of all of a sudden, it turns out the experience that, you know, the first time sort of came about, I felt someone actually wasn’t at all. So. So I don’t know, it doesn’t necessarily get easier. A lot along the way.

Are you still writing stories, as well? Short stories?

Yeah. And that’s something that you know, since North Woods, sort of finished, I’m done with editing for, like around with, with some of those. And you know, I love that as the chance to revisit an idea or even if I don’t want to commit many years to it or it can graduate.

Yeah, I really liked the flow, the stories in Registry. And I just the way you play with time it. Yeah, I just I overall, it just hangs really well as a collection. So I would not be sad to see another collection of stories. I just would like to maybe not wait 15 years, I’d rather not wait. Sorry. I mean, I realize you have kids and a dog and other thing, you know, another job. But it would be kind of great if we did see something and not have to wait 15 years.

I totally agree with you. Yeah, not writing or having trouble writing is agonizing. So I’d be quite happy if I don’t have too many 15 year chunks left.

And also it does seem like you’ve hit a different cadence. I mean, when are soldiers 18 registry is 2020 And here we are talking in 23. So I think that bodes well. Well, luckily, listeners and readers everywhere have North Woods. And I cannot stress how special and slightly weird, but how special this book is. It is. It’s a treat. It is a wild reading experience. It is a million kinds of satisfying and it’s just exactly, exactly the book I needed in this moment. And I really cannot wait. Really super cannot wait. And if you’re in my everyday life, be prepared. There are copies coming your way. But Daniel, thank you so much for joining us. North Woods is out now, if you haven’t read The Piano Tuner or The Winter Soldier or Registry of My Passage upon the Earth, really, those are all out in paperback so you should grab those two.

Thank you so much. It’s been really fun.