Barkskins

Barkskins is an enormous forest of a book, 700 pages and 300 years and three continents of loggers and family timber businesses and Native peoples and even a tree hugger or two. You can expect to find Annie Proulx's meticulous, spot-on use of words in every sentence of this book and you will know from page one that this book has been carefully researched, from the information given about the trees and the people and the places down to tiny details about the people's speech and mannerisms and habits. It's big, so be prepared to invest ten or twelve hours in reading through this beautifully dense work; you will be happy to do so.

This story spans about 300 years and follows the two Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, as they arrive in New France (Canada), and become wood-cutters, a.k.a. barkskins. Set mostly in Canada, and New England, the story also moves to Europe, China, New Zealand, and across the United States. It's a story about the rampant deforestation that occurred in the name of business, and the cultural annihilation of the Indian tribes of the area. I was in the mood for a big meaty novel and I'm a big fan of the Pulitzer Prize-­­winning book, The Shipping News, so this one sounded interesting. And it was. I was hooked from the get-go. Ms. Proulx is an accomplished writer – this is her tenth book – and a wonderful storyteller. You can tell a ton of research went into this fat novel. I never got bored and finished it in about a month.