Enjoy Country People: A Look at the Funny, Quirky Nature of Humanity

Melissa Gouty
23 minutes ago
5 min read

Daniel Mason's 2026 Novel

Book cover to Daniel Mason's novel, Country People, featuring two truffle-sniffing, digging dogs.

I have a confession:

My family thinks I'm too serious. (A few of them think I don't have much of a sense of humor, I'm afraid.) Can you believe that?

Granted, I don’t particularly like comedies because I often find them “stupid” or unrealistic. My sisters and daughters, brothers-in-law, nieces, and nephews can quote lines from Seinfeld, Groundhog Day, and Caddyshack—and laugh every time—while I roll my eyes. So what does it mean that I giggled, guffawed, and even hooted with laughter, often and out loud, as I read Daniel Mason’s 2026 novel, Country People?

I like to think it proves not that I lack a sense of humor, but that I laugh at different things. My comedic tastes run not to slapstick, sarcasm, or humor at someone else’s expense, but to astute observation, artful hyperbole and understatement, and the revelation of absurdity within ordinary situations—all while treating its wonderfully flawed characters with affection. Country People does as it all! (And there's a passage on junk food in the Midwest that I TRULY understood, giggling as I read.)

A sometimes inept, but lovable main character

Country People is the story of a family going through changes, adapting, adjusting, re-adjusting, and learning to thrive in a totally new environment far from what they knew before. It doesn't sound all that amusing, but trust me...

Told by an unnamed omniscient narrator, Country People centers on Miles Krzelewski in all his lovable ineptitude. A perpetual graduate student, Miles has spent fourteen years working on a dissertation about Russian folktales without ever quite getting it done. His trouble is not a lack of interest but an excess of it: every fascinating new subject sends his dissertation careening in another direction. His boundless curiosity continually derails him, and his dissertation is in a state of constant flux, changing shapes more often than a shapeshifter with commitment issues.

Yet he's an excellent husband who has supported his wife, Kate Petrosian, through the years and her battles with multiple sclerosis. Kate is a recognized scholar of the English poets, William Blake and John Milton. When Kate is offered a one-year professorship at Greensbury College, in Greensbury, Vermont, Miles wholeheartedly supports her, agreeing to move with her and the whole family from the busy, sophisticated California Silicon Valley area, to the faraway, remote forested area of Southern Vermont. They embark on an epic adventure driving across the country with kids and an affectionate dog in very close quarters for days.

Miles is also a loving and attentive father to the couple’s two children: Wesley, a studious twelve-year-old with journalistic ambitions, and Olive, a perceptive, artistic nine-year-old who loves her father’s imaginative bedtime stories while recognizing that they may hold more truth than anyone realizes.

At first, Miles and Kate believe that this year away will finally give him the time and inspiration to finish his long-delayed dissertation.

Will that hope come to pass?

Eccentric - but realistic - characters of Country People

As Kate dives into the mainstream of campus activities, Miles is left to fend for himself, drifting into the paths of eccentric but realistic characters. One of the things that made me chuckle as I read Mason's depictions of these characters was their varied backgrounds and beliefs. They often sound absurd, but I found many of those characters to be so unique that they felt real. After all, life is filled with crazy personalities and a wide range of professions.

There’s the rodent exterminator who claims that a rat trail runs directly into Miles’s home; a newly married, pregnant third-grade teacher who is also a survivalist; and Reginald “Snowflake” Bentley, whose Encyclopedia of Foolish Errors is housed in an old ambulance equipped with an actual library card catalog. There’s Andrei, the Russian husband of Kate’s colleague, who tends a failing orchard and scythes continually—while a professional is secretly hired to correct his agricultural mistakes. There’s Bjorn, a Norwegian Olympian and war hero who volunteers as Greensbury’s cross-country ski coach and is so attractive that watching him becomes a local hobby called “Bjorning.” And don’t forget Dr. Nausicaä Torres-Lakeman, a scatraveling actress and director hired to stage the town’s wildly ambitious third-grade production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream!And don't forget Dr. Nausicaä Torres-Lakeman, a traveling actress/director hired by the town to put on the annual, ambitious production of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream....for THIRD GRADERS!

The family’s truffle-sniffing dog, Giuseppe, plays an important part—and is often smarter than the humans around him.

The truths about academia and marriage

As charming and funny as I found this book, it's also spot-on with its observations. Miles feels a bit resentful and left out as Kate plunges into her work, and he is left alone day after day. Jealousy and shame are realistic for the partner of the "successful" spouse.

Throughout, there are some humorous reflections on academia. From the obscure topics to the tweed jackets, I found many of them to be true.

Household maintenance and problems, difficulties with kids, medical emergencies, searching for belonging in the community, and finding new purpose in a new place are all real examples of what many marriages go through. As bizarre as we think the characters are, we realize that we are not so different after all.

But wait...There's more!

The family’s truffle-sniffing dog, Giuseppe, plays an important part—and is often smarter than the humans around him.

North Woods, another Daniel Mason book...

North Woods was another Daniel Mason book, released toward the end of 2023 and read by me in 2024. It was one of my favorite books that year. Sadly, while I predicted it would win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction that year, I was wrong. That doesn't stop my conviction that it SHOULD HAVE won!

Told in various formats, including medical records, letters, and diaries, North Woods tells the story of a house in Massachusetts over a three-hundred-year period. I loved it, so maybe I was predisposed to love Country People, too.

The two books are very different. North Woods is a work of historical fiction chronicling three centuries of events on the same property. Country People is a rollicking romp through modernity and the quirky—but lovable—nature of humanity.

Everyone's tastes are different, but I enjoyed this book immensely. It was so nice to read something that made me laugh instead of feel angry at unfair historical events or horrified by psychotic murders!

PLEASE don't miss Country People - a charming, entertaining book!

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