It’s 2013, and cabins around North Pond in rural Maine have been broken into for years. The thefts seem strange, as expensive electronics are passed up for the odd flashlight, or batteries, or food, or clothes and even an occasional mattress. And propane tanks.
At long last the culprit is apprehended, and the nearly-unbelievable true story of a hermit, living in seclusion in the woods nearby, unfolds. He steals food when he becomes very hungry. He uses batteries for flashlights and radios. He has no real conversation with another human being for 27 years.
This book, The Stranger in the Woods , recounts the unraveling of Christopher Knight’s story of alonenes.
Author Michael Finkel does a masterful job of telling Knight’s story with compassion, althought at times he intruded in Knight’s life in a way that bothered me. I could relate to a degree with the hermit’s shyness. I secretly smirked as psychiatrists desperately tried to label him with diagnoses that never quite fit. (Shy people will know exactly what I me – society is definitely kinder to extroverts).
This book is a real page-turner. I loved it. You might too!
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