Sometimes rating a book is hard ... I'm not sure if I really think of this as a 5* read. I don't know that I LOVED it, or would totally recommend it, but after I listened to the audiobook, I felt compelled to pick up the kindle copy, and I pretty much re-read it all. I needed to experience it again, to attempt to understand and link all the stories and make the connections. This was a very unique piece, and I think it's one I wouldn't mind having in my home library. So very different, I'm not sure if I've read anything quite like this. It made more of an impact on me than the other 4*s I've rated recently... so 5* it is. 

At first, it seems VERY disjointed and impersonal/disconnected ... in chapter one, a couple of lovers, we are never given their names (3rd person/past tense). A section in between chapters - the "Nightmaid's Letter" ... Anonymous (so again, no name given). This is written as a "letter" or journal, first person, very little punctuation, no paragraph breaks. Strange spellings (slayn, benumbed, carryd, stoppd, poysond). Chapter two ... an omniscient narrator, tells a little about the woman in the previous section, some about the location, introduces the apple. Then another non-chapter section "Osgood's Wonder" this was first person/past tense. Chapter three then reverts to the omniscient narrator, telling us about Mary and Alice (Osgood's daughters). 

It continues on like this ... with different sections, several told in verse (technically song, but spoken) about odd items (the catamount, the squirrel, one a verse recap of what had happened in the section before), others, first person accounts (told in case notes or a written address given to a crowd) with the "chapters" of the omniscient narrator in-between featuring different people or things. Brand new characters, introduced ... what do they have to do with this story? Then there's a connection made. Background on the trees, birds, bugs - including an almost explicit encounter between beetles.

So often this felt rambly ... It was a little hard to remember everything (thus my re-read). So many of the sections told in a completely different voice. The omniscient narrator had so much knowledge and quite the vocabulary - I highlighted and looked up so many words I was unfamiliar with. So many times I had NO idea what was going on or why this was being included, then there would be a connection.  The big cat on the cover ... I don't love it (honestly, the whole "don't judge a book by its cover notwithstanding, it made me less interested to give this a try) but "catamount" is said 17 times, and that doesn't even include like references (panther, cougar, mountain lion).

But overall ... this was unique and memorable, and re-reading it after listening (nothing wrong with the audio, just a little hard to really absorb everything!) there was just so much to appreciate, to catch all the connections and the repetitions throughout. 

The "different voices" in the writing, were brought to life with different narrators in the audio edition. Our same omniscient narrator kept the consistency, in the writing and the sound. The first person narratives had their own voices, and the verse sections were voiced by the same narrator. One thing I really liked was at the end of the audio, the different narrators gave credits, listing who they were and which parts they read. I loved that, often I recognize a name and/or a voice but have trouble placing it within an audiobook with multiple narrators. 

If someone didn't like this book, I'd totally understand it ... and after just my first initial listen, I'm not sure how I felt about it, or would have rated it if I'd stopped there. But when I took the time to re-read it, and everything felt familiar (at times I've listened, then read and thought "wow, I missed a lot!) yet not boring (for an immediate re-read).  So many stories, yet all interconnected. Ghostly feel. People, nature. One feels it can never really end.

Just one f-bomb, but quite a bit of sexual content. 

The TOC had the Chapters and the "in-between" sections ... the non-chapter sections are much more descriptive in their content, I rather wish the chapters had headers too.  So below, is as much for my OCD and reference as it is for anything else ;) 

Chapter 1 - Puritan Lovers
Anonymous, the "Nightmaid's" Letter
Chapter 2 - Narrator, nightmaide, nature and apple seed
Osgood's Wonder -Letter to his daughters as he goes to war
Chapter 3 - Narrator, Osgood's daughters; Mary and Alice
Verse - The Catamount
From "Proverbs and Sayings"
Chapter 4 -Phalen, Slave chaser
Verse - Owl & Squirrel
Letters to EN - the painter and the writer
Chapter 5 -The nurse and the letter (caregiver to the painter)
Verse - December Song
Chapter 6 - The Medium
Chapter 7 - Two winds, a spore
Case Notes on Robert S (Robert's mother is the child of the couple in Chapter 6)
Chapter 8 - Newlyweds; and the beetles
Chapter 9 -Lillian (Robert's Mother) prison penpals
Murder Most Cold - True Crime report
Chapter 10 - Helen (Robert's sister)
An Address to the Historical Society of Western Massachusetts
Chapter 11 - Morris the detectorist (who had given the address just mentioned)
Verse - A Cure for Lovesickness (tied to the events at the end of the last chapter)
3Bd, 2Ba - Advertisement for Catamount Acres ... "peace and tranquility to its owners"
Chapter 12 - Nora ... new to the area
Succession ...