Book Review: "Country People" by Daniel Mason

This was a quirky, enjoyable book that packed a stronger punch than I was expecting. It’s been a while since I’ve read something by Daniel Mason (I read The Piano Tuner a number of years ago), and I found myself completely captivated by his storytelling.

Miles has been working on his doctoral dissertation for more than 12 years. He just can’t seem to settle on a topic—every time he starts work he loses focus and shifts to something else. It doesn’t help that his wife Kate is a well-loved and highly revered professor and expert on John Milton.

When Kate gets offered a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in Vermont, she jumps on the opportunity. But she and Miles both believe that the change of scenery will do him good, and maybe he’ll finally be able to finish his dissertation and get his PhD.

So he and Kate uproot their two young children and their dog, and drive cross-country to Vermont from their California home. When they arrive in Vermont, and Kate quickly immerses herself in the world of academia, Miles, who is an excellent storyteller, finds new sources of inspiration for the stories he makes up for his kids.

While he has every intention of finishing the dissertation, since he’s worried that Kate will think he’s a failure, he doesn’t make any progress. But he does meet a motley crew of fascinating people, from an exterminator to a biochemist who is obsessed with his orchard. And then he gets drawn into a group of people who believe there’s a passage to another world in an underground cave.

There’s lots of sly humor here, but the book is also an exploration of finding yourself, the power of stories, parenthood, marriage, and fear of failure. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect here but I really enjoyed it.