With the publication of The Family …, it was clear that David Plante had struck out on new ground and discovered that ground to be rich and fertile. But to some admirers of this gifted writer the narrative method and standpoint of The Family seemed a bit old-fashioned and less uncommon than that of his previous work. The publication of The Country …, and now of The Woods, both, like The Family, set in New England and concerned with the Francoeur family as revealed through the eyes and ears of Daniel—whose perception, whether in the first person or third, of his parents, his brothers and himself has a wonderful, painful accuracy—more than vindicates Plante's sense of direction. The Woods occupies an area between the other two books: in time it is close to The Family; in its method and extreme economy of style it is closer to The...