Not sure about school buses, but I think the fact that the house in North Woods is yellow is another double-sided/good-evil aspect of the story. On the surface, yellow can be considered bright, sunny, optimistic, joyful – but in classic works of literature, it’s more apt to represent decay, illness, impurity. There’s an entire bank of essays on Dostoevsky’s use of yellow in this way in Crime and Punishment. And who can forget Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s disturbing story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”?
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You drove the Mass Pike? Ha! That puts you in my neck of the woods!!
I cross over the Turnpike every day on my way to work, @CBBBlinker! And this morning on that drive, one of the local NPR stations had a segment on “Are there mountain lions in New Hampshire?”! They said the last date one was killed (sighted?) in NH was 1853, and 1858 in Mass. There have been many “sightings,” but none verified (in Mass., 1 verified track and 1 of scat in the last 35 years). Usually bobcats or large house cats. 
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@jerseysouthmomchess, I just settled in and read the “In the Pines” article and the interview with Daniel Mason, and both are excellent! Thank you for posting. The interview was particularly enlightening – well worth the time for anyone who hasn’t dipped into it yet. As a result, instead of being done with Daniel Mason, I now want to read The Winter Soldier.
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I came across this paragraph in the “Pines” article and had to smile
Mason acknowledged that Anastasia is the character in North Woods whose thinking is most like his own. At one point, she articulates the rules her ghosts will follow—which are also the author’s secret rules for the book. As he was writing, he encountered questions about the ghost from both his children and his editor. “What are the rules a ghost is going to follow?” he recalled them asking. “Can your ghost go through walls? Can your ghosts ride horses?” Through Anastasia, he arrived at a theory of invention: “creating something just familiar enough but not too familiar.… Telling them enough to keep the narrative moving along.”
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@jollymama and @Mary13 , I thought that was one of the better articles!
I was going to post what Jollymama posted about the ghosts, and Mason relating to Anastasia most like him !
And, this caught my eye too, about the images used as connectors in the book . I read the kindle version, and tried to enlarge those images, and not sure I always got it.
From In the pines ………
“ Certain chapters, like the one about the panther, are narrated in verse (for which the author consulted the UC Santa Barbara English Broadside Ballad Archive), while others are epistolary. Layered throughout lie antique images that Mason also discovered in the archives. He enjoys the idea that the images, some of them quite strange, serve as connectors and provide a thread of continuity. They serve as “a curtain that, just like in a play, allows you to accept that a lot of years have now passed.”
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From the article posted earlier:
Did you have any favorite moments of “humor and lightness”? I already mentioned the slaughtering song, sung to the tune of “Cheerily and Merrily,” so that’s one, but here are two others that made me laugh:
- Morris Lakeman searching for tools in the yellow house:
What he really needed was an axe. He began to tear through the junk—chairs and boxes, cans of paint, old electronics. This was nuts—a house in New England without an axe?
I don’t think Mary loans that out. 
- Helen’s first thoughts upon finding the box of film reels – this is an abbreviated version of the passage, but you get the idea:
NURSE ANA, POSING FOR WILLIAM, QUALITY POOR.
Quality poor. She could only imagine.
…Then NURSE ANA, VOICE ONLY.
Oh dear.
The next was THREE PURITANS.
Well!
WILLIAM + ERASMUS, TEASING NURSE ANA, ONLY VOICE.
FIRST LOVERS.
ALICE, ON FIFE.
Oh, no.
FIRST LOVER, WITH CHICKEN.
No, no, no.
Hey, you know what I just realized as I typed the above? If Robert heard “William and Erasmus teasing Nurse Ana”, that means she must have come clean to them about tearing up Nash’s letter; all is forgiven; and they are now pals in the afterlife. 
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I agree that was really funny when she was imagining what might be on those tapes. I think that’s the first time I realized the slightly weird stuff really was ghosts.
I thought the rules for what the ghosts could do was confusing, but I wasn’t bothered enough by it to be irritated by it.
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The seance amused me or rather the arrival of actuals spirits did.
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Yes, the seance, and as mason moved to the more modern times, adapted writing style to match.
From my notes, I jotted down page 275 ( kindle ) humorous -
Section entitled from Murders Past ( Charlie and the bone )
“ Now, I’m no coroner, and the little terrier had done a fine job chewing it up, but this was part of a pelvis if I’ve ever seen one. And Doyle must have thought the same, because he asks where it had come
. Storm brought it up, says Mrs. S, and explains that ever since the wind knocked the trees down, the dog’s been nosing about in the mud. “Bear, I think,” she added, but Doyle shook his head. He and his boys had been hunting and dressing their own kills since they were kids and knew their bones. And me—well, I just had to reach down and touch my waist to confirm some basic measurements. —
Here was a thought I had,
So Mason is spending time during Covid with his” in- laws”
Is there any BETTER reason to get out of the house everyday, for prolonged periods, then needing to research the next book. 
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And speaking of “the next book,” we can start choosing ours (for October) at any time!
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I meant to also include in the above list that the Nightmaid’s tale is written in the margins of the Bible. Then that made me reflect on the fact that she is the first of several characters in the novel who feel pulled to tell their stories in writing – the Nightmaid, Charles Osgood, William Teale, Robert S., Jack Dunne, etc.
I think storytelling is a very basic part of human nature, whether in the margins of a Bible or in letters or books or articles – or for that matter, whispered into the earth. So many of the characters in North Woods have a tale to relate (often a wild one!) and it’s another way the chapters and the house’s inhabitants are all connected.
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Could it be cheerful and upbeat? With likable characters? And a happy ending? 
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The Yellow Bus? 
(Teasing … and sure, I’m always game for upbeat. Let’s get some suggestions going and see what we come up with!)
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I haven’t read Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend yet. Has everyone else? The New York Times recently listed it as #1 on its best books of the 21st century so far. Readers gave it #8.
Here’s a gift link to the readers’ list – maybe something else in here will inspire us!
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Last year I half kiddingly suggested Georgette Heyer - I did end up reading through her entire romance repertoire -skipped the mysteries and some of the heavy historical ones. I was surprised to discover that I did not actually own every book - had to track down half a dozen in the library systems.
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I read an amazing book by Jodi Picoult called Leaving Time. I think it would be a book that would engender a LOT of good discussion.
It’s the quest of a young girl to find her mother who has disappeared — but it is so much more than that . Lyrical writing and one of a kind characters and mystery that resolves in a way that I don’t think any reviewers expected.
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Oops sorry. My suggestion was made before I saw this, and I wouldn’t say upbeat is it’s defining characteristic!
The book Demon Copperhead has recently been recommended to me. It’s from 2022 so some of you may have already read it. I’ll throw it in for consideration. It sounds like it has a little bit of every emotion in it. I don’t know if it falls into the happy category.
Demon Copperhead: A Novel https://a.co/d/fSMyW6q
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I love Georgette Heyer! Her books set the standard for romance novels. I love the research she did to help explain the details and atmosphere of the time.
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