The best and worst of human behaviors and experiences are on display in North Woods. What did you make of this?

The best and worst of human behaviors and experiences are on display in North Woods: love, murder, betrayal, yearning, generosity, madness, envy. What did you make of this?

A remote location deep in the woods invites all kinds of people coming through - early settlers on the run, Indians seeking a safe place, a family that truly loved the land and nurtured the growth of apples (with a unique original strain and distinctive flavor), out of control soldiers, bounty hunters, runaway slave. The varying behaviors named in the question can be found anywhere, but perhaps in the solitary exposure to the natural world and all that encompasses deep in the woods, one lets their own true nature display. Some for the good, some not.

I found it fitting. The book spanned hundreds of years.As I sit in my house in a lovely neighborhood in the Midwest that’s only 50 + years old, I can, having lived here for 30 years think of several notable acts that would fit right into North Woods. If I include the adjoining neighborhood I can, unfortunately, think of a recent murder by a mentally ill grown son of his father and the beating of his mother. Numerous divorces, mental breakdowns, police visits, family calamities. And these are only those that drew widespread attention. So.. it seems to me, since the area was less populated then, and this house was an available outpost in a sparsely populated area, and stood for so very long, quite believable.

The best and the worst of human behaviors are found everywhere, they are just more magnified in an isolated environment.

The best and worst of human behavior would be on display no matter where this novel was set because where there are human beings there will be the full range of human experience. Sometimes we don't take the time to notice, or we ignore them to shield ourselves.

I believe when a story encompasses that amount of time and many people it will naturally include the best and worst of human behavior. The story of humanity is filled with stories in which we are awed at the best in humanity and yet if it is to ring true, it will also have depths to which people can sink. The phrase "if these walls could talk" fits this house. It has stood for a long time as a witness to stories of the living things that choose its walls.

I make of it that the book is written by a trained psychiatrist, so he has quite the library of human personalities from which to pull his characters. He deftly describes an astonishingly wide array of human and even animal personas.

I liked that about this book. You never knew what to expect from one “story” to another. And after all, it did span hundreds of years, so wouldn’t you expect the whole spectrum of humanity? Many times books offer predictable characters who are beautiful, talented, speak 8 languages, etc so this was a welcome change.

We find good and bad in every day life. This story was no different. It may have been odd if that were not true - so it is expected