Editor's note: For four Sundays in September, Karena Tse of Daniel Boone Regional Library will explore a different aspect of this year's One Read title, "North Woods" by Daniel Mason. Columns may include spoilers.

It is fair to call “North Woods” a bittersweet story, considering the constant departures of beloved characters and the shifts in scale that make each of their lives seem, eventually, so small. But it would be a mistake to ignore its moments of pure sweetness. The novel is relentless in its investigation of time’s work on the world, yet it is generous, even indulgent, in its ideas of justice. There are ghosts that arrive just in time to stop a wicked hunt. There is a catamount, delivering death sentences in acts of near divinity.

Revenge is sweetened by anticipation, and the st

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