In Daniel Mason’s Comic Novel ‘Country People,’ California Collides with New England

Acclaimed novelist Daniel Mason’s latest book, “Country People,” centers on Miles, a stalled PhD student of Russian folklore, who is married to a brilliant academic. A visiting stint at a prestigious liberal arts college in rural Vermont sends their family of four, plus the perfect dog, careening through a different America of Slim Jims, forests, and local legends. It’s both a sendup of academia—Mason’s a Stanford professor of psychiatry, after all— and those intrepid Californians, like himself, who head to New England in the summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices