Country People: A GMA Book Club Pick

A Novel

By: Daniel Mason

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Jason Culp, Maggi-Meg Reed, Kirby Heyborne, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, Michael Crouch, Mark Deakins, Kaleo Griffith, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Hillary Huber, George Newbern, Kirsten Potter

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont)—a “witty and gorgeous” (The Guardian) novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of North Woods

“Charming . . . There’s so much fine, freewheeling observation and pillowy erudition here, it’s tempting just to sink in.”—The New York Times

Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life.

But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, a great capacity “to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas.

The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.

Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

Critic reviews

“Charming . . . a prescription for summer amusement that takes immediate effect. . . . lovely if occasionally confounding company, like going in and out of a thick mist. . . . the prose of Country People flows like a babbling brook . . . There’s so much fine, freewheeling observation and pillowy erudition here, it’s tempting just to sink in.”—The New York Times

“The surface structures in Country People may be sugar-spun, but the novel’s foundations are solid, and its roots—the tangled and interconnected web of stories that gave rise to its new stories—are deliciously deep. The esoteric is counterbalanced by the mundane; family life is judged as worthy of investigation as underground caverns; and the whole thing is delivered in prose so witty and gorgeous that it calls to mind Nabokov’s comic masterpiece Pnin, surely another of the book’s literary antecedents. This is, put simply, a joyful book—and the deeper you dig, the more joyful it becomes.”—The Guardian

“Satirical but big-hearted and empathetic. . . . Mason is a lively, fluid writer; here he glides smoothly between present and past, myth and everyday detail, skepticism and credulity. He has fun with his characters without making fun of them. . . . It is simply put, very funny. . . . Reading Country People in public I kept having to muffle my LOLs. That’s never a bad sign. The affection that Mason clearly feels for Miles and his brood is infectious.”—The Boston Globe

“Delightful . . . joy-making . . . one of our country’s most gifted novelists, Mason has spun a yarn about parenthood and marriage, storytelling and imagination.”—Bookpage, starred review

“My favorite of the year: Country People. . . . has the bright ease of visiting a good old friend. . . . one of those books where nothing happens, and yet everything does.”—Chicago Tribune

“The humor—dry, humane, occasionally absurd—is ever-present . . . a cast of small-town figures whose quirks are rendered with generosity rather than satire.”—Booklist, starred review

“Mason has fun exploring marriage, friendship, parenthood and the beguiling allure of storytelling and fantasy in this upbeat romp.”—NPR

“A lively cast of local characters.”—Harper’s Bazaar

“Wonderful—full of joy—and exactly the kind of reading experience we could all do with right now . . . the book of the summer.”—Mick Herron, bestselling author of Slow Horses

Just the Laugh I Needed

It has been sometime since I Iaughed so long and so hard over a book! I think I stared giggling in the first 3 minutes. I don't know if this novel is a commentary on modern American life or not. And I don't care! It provided the laugh I needed as a happy contrast to current events and other bleak matters. And yet, "Country People" is novel for adults that deals with such serious topics as chronic illness, missing children, and doing one's best to be a part of a community. But the humor is never, ever lost. Spend a credit, download the title, and be prepared to laugh.

A rollicking all-season read

So glad that I listened to this on Audible. Some stories simply must be read aloud to be best appreciated, and this is one. I had read Mason's gorgeous, ghostly North Woods and decided to dive into this to see what he would do next. As others have said, the prose, the characters, and the warm humor make this a memorable book. I'm not ready to move to rural Vermont, but I would like to have Miles and his family as neighbors!

Very good descriptions of interior thoughts.

I laughed out loud while driving several times. The reading is flawless and added to the narrative.

Mythology

A little too quirky, humor did not always fit what could have been a nicely told mythology.

*The* summer novel

A glorious, uproarious, and erudite hymn to procrastination that is, a root, a quest for re-enchantment and mystical lost worlds. If Russian novels were funnier and about rural New England, they would be like Country People. The readers and producers are pros and do it justice.