"The Stranger in the Woods"

 (The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit)

-by michael finkel

2017

Be prepared to not believe.

Then be prepared to not be able to stop reading.

In 1986, twenty year-old chris knight drove his car through central Maine past the point of no return, then walked into the woods...and didn't come out for twenty-seven years. By "come out", i mean dragged out by the authorities who finally found him after more than a thousand petty larcenies. He would emerge from the woods in the dead of night, to burgle books, batteries, and food from empty vacation homes.

In all those years, he had but one accidental conversation with another person, a two-word exchange with an unknowing hiker.

He survived all those Maine winters without a fire for heat...coming close to death from freezing or starvation numerous times.

He wasn't writing a best-seller. He left a job and functioning childhood family behind, without a word. He intended to live in his hermit's camp, until he died.

The story of chris knight may upend your beliefs about modern society, companionship, and sanity. It may shake you to your core, with both horror AND envy.

Much of the credit for that goes to finkel, whose narrative is little short of perfect. After chris's capture, michael was the only journalist he allowed in his presence. The depth of research is breathtaking, from interviews to analyses of the history and psychology of "solitaries". The hermits of America actually have a dues-paying organization (with website)...and i'm sure chris would have just as much disregard for them as he does for relative dilettantes such as thoreau. When America became fascinated with the chris mccandless saga, knight had already lived utterly alone for a decade...and would continue so for almost two more.

As the story unfolds, HOW and WHY will clang inside your head...though perhaps not everyone will feel resonances of themself in knight's story. And that's just one more facet of the modern humyn tragedy.