Daniel Mason’s new novel, Country People, opens with an unnamed father, mother and two children making their way across the country, from their home in California to somewhere strange and mysterious.
The destination is New England. And the father is the well-educated but socially hapless Miles Krzelewski, who is 12 years into his PhD on Russian folktales and beginning to think he’s a disappointment to his family. His wife, Kate, has landed a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in rural Vermont. So the family has packed up everything and relocated, as Miles tells his children during evening storytime, Russian folktale-style: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain land…”
It is a land of country people, in fact. And what unfolds is a whimsical, joyful, enchanting series of events that, when combined with Mason’s stellar prose, elevates this novel to first-class summer reading. Mason’s previous novel, North Woods, was a genre-defying literary epic that spanned four centuries through interconnected vignettes. Country People has a similar episodic feel, but this time we experience just a year with the Krzelewski-Petrosian family as all four members — along with their truffle-hunting dog, Giuseppe — navigate the delights and disappointments of their new home.
We follow Miles as he meets a series of eccentric locals who are every bit as colorful as the characters in his Russian folk tales, from third-grade teacher Kayleigh Swan, to lifestyle blogger Candace “Farm Candy” Flaherty, to Norwegian cross-country ski god Bjorn Nordqvist. The family frequents honor-system produce stands and embraces the annual Greensbury Elementary Clothing Sale, where the kids get hand-me-down parkas and patched-up ski pants bearing hand-written nametags from previous generations.
“Everyone made a big deal about it, which the transplants found charming, a remnant of communal small-town life,” Mason writes. “Until Miranda explained the ruthlessness, the deals and elbows. … You could sometimes trace a good ski bib back through four or five children, and so it could be said one acquired not only clothing but an entire history.”
Mason delivers an absurd but tender portrait of rural New England, with a plot that explores larger themes like marriage, parenthood, curiosity and storytelling — a belief in nature and the nature of belief.
Country People is not a rehash of North Woods, but it exists in a similar magical universe. And Mason has proven himself again as a novelist worth following.
