I can’t get this book out of my mind. Unusual and, apparently, unforgettable. It’s the story of a plot of ground in the American Northeast as told by the lives, loves and losses of the humans who pass through it.

Each chapter or section of the book is another set of people coming to the land representing different eras of American history. And it’s so much more than that … it’s the ecosystem, it’s the aliveness of the trees, it’s the memories it holds and hides, it’s man vs man and man vs nature, it’s intimate and sweeping.

I imagine the author looking over a bucolic country setting and wondering, “if this soil could talk what tales would it share?” The flap blurb reads that it’s “about a solitary house in the woods” and the acreage plays an equal role, in my opinion. I found the first couple chapters confusing and kept reading because daughter Anne had recommended. Well worth the effort.

Intricate, stunning, slightly weird. 5 stars.