Woodsburner springs from a little-known event in the life
of one of America’s most iconic figures, Henry David
Thoreau. On April 30, 1844, a year before he built his
cabin on Walden Pond, Thoreau accidentally started a forest
fire that destroyed three hundred acres of the Concord
woods—an event that altered the landscape of American
thought in a single day.
Against the background of Thoreau’s fire, Pipkin’s
ambitious debut penetrates the mind of the young
philosopher while also painting a panorama of the young
nation at a formative moment. Pipkin’s Thoreau is a lost
soul, plagued by indecision, resigned to a career designing
pencils for his father’s factory while dreaming of better
things. On the day of the fire, his path will intersect
with three very different local citizens, each of whom also
harbors a secret dream. Oddmund Hus, a lovable Norwegian
farmhand, pines for the wife of his brutal employer.
Elliott Calvert, a prosperous bookseller, is also a
hilariously inept aspiring playwright. And Caleb Dowdy
preaches fire and brimstone to his congregation through an
opium haze. Each of their lives, like Thoreau’s, is changed
forever by the fire.
Like Geraldine Brooks’s March and Colm Tóibín’s The Master,
Woodsburner illuminates America’s literary and cultural
past with insight, wit, and deep affection for its
unforgettable characters, as it brings to vivid life the
complex man whose writings have inspired generations.