One of my favorite books I read in 2021 was These Silent Woods – an engrossing, perfectly-paced novel about a man (Cooper) and his daughter (Finch) who live isolated in the northern Appalachian Mountains. Cooper educates his young daughter, teaching her survival skills and reminding her always that they need to stay hidden from the real world. Finch aims to please her father and does nearly everything she’s told, but as most children do, she struggles to keep her curiosity at bay.
It takes many chapters to understand why they live in hiding, but the characters are so likeable, and the narrative is so beautiful, that it almost doesn’t matter why they live in hiding. Readers understand there’s some measure of crime or threat involved, but those details don’t surface for a while.
The cast of characters is small. There’s Scotland, an elderly man who also lives a hermit life in the woods. He pops in and out of the story, trying to discern the nature of this two-person family and what they might be up to. There’s also Jake, the man who makes an annual trek to bring supplies to Cooper and Finch and check on their well-being.
What sets the story in motion is the year Jake doesn’t show up. With supplies running low, and no way of knowing what happened to Jake, Cooper must figure out how to keep him and his daughter safe and fed. This primary task propels the story forward.
I adored this story so much that I gifted the novel to a few friends, including my grandmother, who called me the day she finished it to tell me how much she loved it. (She read it in a day or two, I believe.) So yeah – if Mamaw says it’s good, you know it’s good.
Bravo, Kimi Cunninghim Grant. I can’t wait to read your next one!