An academic superstar, her devoted husband, two kids, and dog pack up in the Bay Area of California and head out on a great American road trip to start the wife’s yearlong visiting professorship in rural Vermont.
So begins “Country People,” the fifth novel by award-winning author and psychiatrist Daniel Mason ’98. The story centers around the husband, Miles, as he tries to embrace small-town life and finish the dissertation he’s been nursing for 14 years, all while battling his own wandering sense of purpose and place in the world.
In an interview with the Gazette, which has been edited for clarity and length, Mason discussed how looking closely at some of life’s small but beautiful moments can be rich fodder for storytelling.
What was the inspiration for the novel?
When I wrote my last book, “North Woods” (2023), I spent a year out in Western Mass., Southern Vermont, and upstate New York doing research, and there were a number of characters there that remained with me even after I was done.
