John McPhee. The Pine Barrens. New York: The Noonday Press, 1968. 157 pages.
This is a non-fiction classic that, forty years on, still is a brisk and entertaining read. McPhee sketches the geography, history, and people of the Pine Barrens, a surprisingly undeveloped section of the country’s most densely-populated state.
McPhee starts with “The Woods from Hog Willow,” a description of a visit to the house of a longtime resident that sets the tone of the rest of the book. The author’s part of this chapter, as we see the pines and two typical residents through his eyes. From there, he shifts into a more or less straightforward third-person narrative of the region and its history.
There’s something almost poetic about the solitude of the Pine Barrens that McPhee artfully conveys. He really captures the eerie timelessness of the deep woods when he describes several areas that used to have bustling towns and mills that are now indistinguishable from the surrounding forest–there is no trace at all that humans once lived there. It will certainly make you think about how ephemeral our enterprises can be.
I’d really suggest this book for any student of good non-fiction writing because McPhee infuses the Pine Barrens with drama and charm, in the process teaching the reader a great deal about an obscure section of America. It’s been forty years since he wrote The Pine Barrens, so this is probably not a completely accurate guide to today’s pinelands, but it’s nonetheless a landmark book.