48 pages • 1 hour read
Michael FinkelThe Stranger in the Woods
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Christopher Thomas Knight
Although Michael Finkel writes most of the story from a first-person point of view, the North Pond hermit is the central figure of the story. The Stranger in the Woods elevates Knight from local myth and news cycle oddity to a cunning but tragic survivalist.
Both an honest man and a thief, Knight represents multiple contradictions. His improbable lifestyle is possible through hyperrational planning. He has no desire for friends and is proud to refer to himself as “lord of the woods” yet remains intensely insecure about how others perceive him (98). He reads voraciously and can quote The Communist Manifesto, but he cares little for intellectuals or high-minded visions.
Most of the book comes from Knight’s interviews over the course of his stay in prison, where a glass panel and telephones separate he and Finkel. He has a slow speaking style with a word choice that is “careful as a poet” (49), and Finkel notes that it can feel more like dictation than conversation. These barriers are necessary for him to feel in control; Knight struggles with tone or communication cues, leaving a bad impression on others. When Finkel meets Knight after release with no wall between the two, Knight suffers an emotional breakdown. The difficulties of human interaction are the primary reason why he goes into the forest.
Finkel allows the reader to come to their own conclusions about Knight. The book’s title, The Stranger in the Woods, positions him as neither hermit nor thief, but as an individual whose identity and motives are unknown to all but himself. Finkel includes scientific reasons for Knight’s behavior—something he doesn’t care for—as well as testimonies from sympathetic and unsympathetic sources that he can give rebuttals to.
Michael Finkel
Finkel serves as the narrator for The Stranger in the Woods, acting as an outsider to both Knight’s world and the simple towns of inland Maine. Finkel is a magazine journalist whose credits include National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and GQ. This book combines several of Finkel’s recurring subjects, including remote lifestyles and extraordinary true crime.
He was a writer for The New York Times Magazine until 2002, when Finkel admitted to creating a composite character based on several unannotated interviews for a story on child slavery. While Finkel was cooperative, and the Times only found two minor errors in his other stories, it removed him as a freelancer for violating journalistic ethics (Finkel, Michael. “Is Youssouf Malé a Slave?” The New York Times Magazine, 18 November 2001, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/magazine/is-youssouf-male-a-slave.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap). For The Stranger in the Woods, Finkel provides an afternote of reporting sources and collaborators.
Prison interviews are a key component of both this book and his previous work, True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa, which is about a murderer who uses Finkel’s name as an alias. Knight refers to Finkel as “my Boswell” after famous biographer James Boswell (184) and is aware that he is writing about him. Finkel does not doubt Knight’s story but does question some of his responses, such as his distaste for Henry David Thoreau when the two are actually very similar. Unlike Knight, Finkel does see the hermit as a friend, and he refers to him as such to a guard before their first meeting.
Finkel acts as a foil to Knight: He retains a romantic view of the wilderness and an appreciation for the solitary writers that Knight is quick to critique. He sometimes teases the prisoner, such as when he insinuates that Alice Macdonald is his girlfriend. The two are only three years apart in age, and Finkel’s life as a writer and father is something that Knight could have been if he had received help with his social problems sooner.
Sergeant Terry Hughes
Terry Hughes is the most visible face among the Maine authorities involved in Knight’s arrest, and he is largely representative of them: A veteran official with an impressive background. While remaining sympathetic to Knight, Finkel provides a fair view of law enforcement’s perspective and doesn’t judge the officers for their decisions.
Several blind spots keep Hughes and other authorities from capturing Knight. They expect someone who was unusual or had special training, like a military veteran. Knight’s methodical planning minimizes the risk of people catching him or finding traceable evidence, he remains inactive during the winter months, and Maine’s reputation for peculiar residents tempers a more aggressive manhunt.
Despite his obsession with the hermit, to the point of setting traps for him, and personal connection as a Pine Tree camp volunteer, Hughes doesn’t hate Knight. Knight never lies or makes excuses like other criminals, and Hughes is impressed by his skills, noting that Knight’s campsite used positional techniques from The Art of War.
The Knight Family
The secrecy of Knight’s family may be greater than that of the hermit’s: Finkel mentions in his reporting notes that while other residents and authorities were willing to talk to him for hours about the case, he couldn’t obtain interviews from any of Knight’s family members. His father was a navy veteran who died in 2001 without Knight’s knowledge, while Joyce raised the children at home. Christopher has no qualms about his parents and worries about humiliating them, but their emotionally detached parenting style may explain some of his socialization issues.
In order, his older brothers are Daniel, Joel, Jonathan, and Timothy. They all appear to be solitary figures who work in mechanical fields. The Knights coordinate efforts to keep Finkel from seeing the hermit again, seemingly against his will. Finkel gives no explanation why, though it’s possible that the privacy-minded family sees the journalist as exploiting their loved one for a story.
Knight’s younger sister, Susanna, has Down syndrome and remains in Joyce’s care with limited contact with the outside world. Susanna’s isolation from society mirrors Chris’s, and he misses her the most of all his family.
