JOY-RIDING SANTA

I met friends for lunch at a Persian restaurant, which is where I saw this VW Beetle, all decked out for the
holidays. The lunch was delish!

I met these friends to discuss:
NORTH WOODS, A Novel
By: Daniel Mason
We all read & enjoyed it, plus we had
a great discussion. I thought the
characters were a catalog of ways
the feckless can destroy their lives.
My friend, however, thought they
were following “the beat of a different drummer,” which is very much an
American quality. That view
neutralized my judgement of them.
It sees violence is almost mandatory in
novels, & I had a difficult time with
those passages. I loved the ghosts!

Anyway, we agreed the book is beautifully written & on our Best of 2024 list.