Woodsburner: A Novel by John
Pipkin
Deserves 10 Stars!
Best of the Month, May 2009: The early American tree-hugger and
pioneering thinker Henry David Thoreau did a bad, bad thing back on April
30, 1844. A year before he settled into the “simple life” at Walden Pond,
he struck a match to start a cooking fire in the dry woods around Concord,
Massachusetts and accidentally ignited a forest fire that consumed 300
acres. The events of that chaotic day appear to have altered the course of
Thoreau’s life and American history. More recently, this historical footnote
sparked the creation of Woodsburner, a terrific debut novel from John
Pipkin. Woodsburner offers a nuanced portrait of a young and less
recognizable Thoreau, whose philosophy begins to materialize as the
flames lay waste. The talented Pipkin simultaneously presents a vivid
picture of mid-19th century New England on the cusp of unstoppable
change through a cast of characters: a sadistic and misguided preacher, a
desperate bookseller, and an isolated immigrant laborer harboring painful
secrets. Their lives are forever changed by the fire which serves as a

powerful metaphor for the destructive passions that consume us, as well
as the eternal struggles between human society and the natural world.
--Lauren Nemroff Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with John Pipkin Question:
How did the idea for Woodsburner come to you? John Pipkin: Although I
have always admired Thoreau’s insights, many of which I think are still just
as relevant today as they were 150 years ago, I really had no intention of
ever writing a novel about Thoreau. In fact, I was working on an outline for
an entirely different book in the fall of 2003 when I came across a brief line
in the Harper’s Index: Estimated acres of forest Henry David Thoreau
burned down in 1844 trying to cook fish he had caught for dinner: 300. The
irony was striking: to think that one of America’s iconic environmentalists
might have been driven—at least in part—by his remorse over having
brought about the destruction of the very thing he so loved. Thoreau’s
biographies mention the incident, but no one has explored the influence
that this fire may have had on Thoreau’s naturalist philosophy. The forest
fire takes place at a time in Thoreau’s life when his professional ambitions
seem to have come to a standstill. By the age of 26, he had been unable
to support himself by teaching, writing, and working as a handyman of
sorts, and he had not yet built his famous cabin at Walden Pond. At the
start of 1844, Thoreau was relatively unknown, but after the fire he finally
begins the work for which he would be remembered. So I began to
wonder if it were possible that an accidental forest fire had somehow
helped change the landscape of American literary history.
Question: Without giving too much away from the novel, can you tell us a
little about how Thoreau accidentally started such a huge forest fire? John
Pipkin: Well, it actually started with a simple act of carelessness, as I
guess most forest fires do. On April 30, 1844, Thoreau went on a boating
trip with a friend, Edward Sherman Hoar. After catching some fish, they
decided to row ashore at Fair Haven Bay (a few miles south of the town of
Concord) and build a fire to cook their fish into a chowder. There had been
no rain for weeks, so the woods were exceptionally dry for springtime in
New England, and, to make matters worse, the day was far too windy to
build a fire safely. Thoreau proceeded to do so anyway, and as soon as
he lit the kindling the wind blew the flames into the dry grass nearby. From
there it spread into the Concord Woods and rapidly moved north toward
the town before being extinguished by Concord’s residents, who beat back
the flames and cut down trees to create firebreaks. Ironically, Thoreau and
Hoar had initially forgotten to bring matches with them on their trip, but
they met a shoemaker at the river’s edge who lent them some.
Question: What record do we have of the actual fire of 1844? Does
Thoreau ever mention it in his writings? John Pipkin: The main record of
the fire is a newspaper article that appeared in the Concord Freeman on
May 3, 1844. The article does not mention Thoreau or Hoar by name, but
says that the fire “was communicated to the woods through the
thoughtlessness of two of our citizens.” Thoreau writes about the fire at
length in his journal, but he does not do so until six years later, in 1850. In
his entry he appears both guilt-ridden and defensive, sometimes saying

that he “had felt like a guilty person—nothing but shame and regret,” while
at other times he insists that “I have set fire to the forest, but I have done
no wrong therein... it was a glorious spectacle, and I was the only one
there to enjoy it.” It is striking, I think, that Thoreau could not bring himself
to record the event at the time it occurred, but six years later he evidently
still felt moved enough by the experience to wrestle with his guilt in his
journal.
Question: What were the implications of the fire? How was Thoreau
regarded after the fact among fellow Concordians? John Pipkin: One of the
most interesting things, I think, about the article in the Concord Freeman is
that it reflects how Americans in early-nineteenth century New England
were already growing concerned over nature’s vulnerability to human
recklessness. The article concludes: “It is to be hoped that this
unfortunate result of sheer carelessness, will be borne in mind by those
who may visit the woods in [the] future for recreation.” By the 1840’s this
area of New England was already beginning to show signs of deforestation
due to the spread of agriculture and the growth of Concord as a
transportation hub. What many people don’t realize is that, thanks to
reforestation efforts in the 20th century, there are actually more trees at
Walden today than there were in Thoreau’s time. So you can imagine the
outrage of the people of Concord (not to mention those who owned the
burned property) when they discovered that some of the last portions of
untouched woodland in the area had been reduced to ash. The owners of
the property were prepared to take legal action against Thoreau, but
Hoar’s father compensated them for their financial loss. Nevertheless, the
people of Concord were angry at Thoreau for what he had done, and some
continued to refer to him as the “woodsburner” for years afterward.
Question: With this novel, you pose the possibility that the fire was the
catalyst that caused Thoreau to retreat to Walden Pond and begin his
writings. How likely is this idea? John Pipkin: I think it is entirely
conceivable that had Thoreau not burned down 300 acres of woodland and
evoked the anger of the residents of Concord, he might not have decided
to live by himself and focus on his writing when and where he did. For
some time before the fire, Thoreau had spoken of his wish to go off and
live alone in the woods somewhere, to concentrate on his writing and
observe the passing of the seasons, but by the spring of 1844 he still had
no definite plans to fulfill this ambition. Similarly, although Ralph Waldo
Emerson had often mentioned to Thoreau that he would like to buy some
land at Walden to spare the trees from the woodsman’s ax, it is not until
after the fire that Emerson finally buys a plot of land at the pond. And the
following summer, at the encouragement of William Ellery Channing,
Thoreau builds a cabin on Emerson’s plot and moves in for two years. I do
think that the fir
Personal Review: Woodsburner: A Novel by John Pipkin
I wish I could give this book more than just five stars because it pleased
me so much, and I was so sorry to have it end. I was hesitant with it, as I

read Walden as a teenager, and found it dreadfully boring. I was afraid
this would be more of the same, but it certainly is not. A well written, well
thought out book with rich, well developed characters who find their lives
intertwined and ultimately changed forever by this fire that one man set
one day in the woods. It is not only about the fire, which is another reason
I hesitated with this one. I thought to myself, how could a person write a
book this large about a fire? There would have to be more to it, I thought.
Well, there certainly is more. I loved every character, even though I didn't
like them all the time. This book is not just about an actual fire, but it is
about the fire that burns in all of us. A fire that drives us forward, a fire that
makes us do things we might not want to do, a fire that sometimes
consumes us from within. What a master work this is...I can't wait to read
it again because I feel I'll find even more to think about once I do. That's
the key to this one...it makes you think, especially about what drives you.
Think about the fire that burns in you when you pick up this pageturner.
You won't be disappointed.
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