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.
Chapters 7-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7-8 Summaries
Michael Finkel becomes interested in the Knight story after seeing it on his cellphone feed. He is close to Knight in age and enjoys being alone as a writer and outdoorsman, but the birth of his three children causes an imbalance in his solitary time that, at one point, drives him to take a silent retreat in India. While Finkel can’t handle the strict regimen, he sees the power of silence to unlock deep, sometimes unsettling thoughts. Not only could Knight have experienced that sensation, but he was also an avid reader whose stolen library includes science fiction, Harlequin romances, and classics like Ulysses and Robinson Crusoe.
The case disappears from the news cycle. Desperate to learn more, Finkel sends a letter and several article clippings to the inmate. Knight gives a 273-word response that is both blunt and apologetic: He begins with a droll “Received your letter, obviously” (29) and criticizes Finkel’s interest in Ernest Hemingway, but worries about his handwriting with the rubber prison pen and potential rudeness.
Finkel sends him several books and a longer letter describing his family, a camping trip in the Montana wilderness during the recent supermoon, and the professional setbacks he suffered after creating a composite character for a news story. The supermoon anecdote leads Knight to reveal more about himself, as he has attempted to use that as a conversation starter.
Knight complains about living conditions and his inability to converse with people he shares nothing in common with. He retains his sanity by reminiscing about wildflowers, the “song of salt and fat frying” from the stove (41), and the quiet. He doesn’t meditate. In his fifth and final letter, Knight abruptly shuts off communication as prison life stresses him out and legal processes drag on.
Chapter 9 Summary
Finkel travels from Montana to Maine unannounced to arrange a face-to-face conversation with Knight. The hermit initially does not want to speak but feels compelled because of the distance Finkel traveled and a desire to improve his communication skills. After 140 days in jail, Knight is thin with a long, curly beard.
Knight doesn’t make eye contact, seems irritated by Finkel’s presence, and gives curt responses to his icebreaker questions. Finkel notes that his leg is bouncing rapidly and that his dialect is “raspy […] overenunciated, unnaturally spaced, absent of elisions” (48). Finkel feels unwelcome but resolves to stay the allotted hour-long time.
After several minutes, Knight settles down and brings up how people expect him to be nice and filled with wisdom. Finkel uses the opening to set up a joke:
Your hermit home—like under a bridge? I said, trying to play along.
He embarked on an achingly long blink. ‘You’re thinking of a troll.’
I laughed, and his face moved in the direction of a smile (49).
Knight opens up and slowly talks about how he prefers to be offensive rather than polite—at one point admonishing Finkel for naming his son Beckett—along with how he becomes overwhelmed with emotion at odd moments. He asks about the coverage of his case and notes that his appearance and hermit label help keep others away. Knight bats away Finkel’s attempt to learn more about his forest life but agrees to another visit.
Chapter 10 Summary
Finkel attempts to visit Knight’s campsite in the North Pond area, where the vacation homes are simple, stores have nondescript names, and family names date back to French colonists. Its location is on a private parcel of land, meaning that the hermit was trespassing on top of stealing from residents, and it is surprisingly close to civilization. However, the forest has a perfect level of thickness and “the Jarsey” offers a patch of rugged terrain with boulders, thorns, mosquitos, and limited visibility.
Finkel fails to find the location several times, including once when he slips and bumps his forehead “with enough force to raise an immediate lump” (57). Both he and Hughes marvel at Knight’s ability to traverse the area at night without even a noise. Finally, Finkel notices that an elephant-sized stone he passed was an optical illusion: It was two slightly separated rocks that he could slip through to reach the site.
Chapter 11 Summary
Finkel describes the campsite according to the remains and Hughes’s description from Knight’s arrest. The centerpiece was a camouflaged A-frame tarp 10 feet tall and 12 feet long. To prevent water from leaking into the tent, Knight packed magazines together as flooring and covered them with carpet. The kitchen area had a Coleman two-burner stove linked to a propane tank using a garden hose. A tent within the A-frame housed his bedroom with a twin-sized mattress, box spring, bed frame, pillows, and sleeping bags for additional warmth.
Outside the tent was a washing area, storage units, a laundry line, and a rainwater collector made from tarp and garbage cans. Knight traditionally stored 60-90 gallons of water in case of droughts. Knight made regular improvements to the site and was reluctant to show it to officers because he hadn’t cleaned in a while.
The campsite answers several questions about the hermit. His skin is still pale despite living outside because the tree branches protected him from sunlight. Mouse traps and rodent-proof containers protected his food from animals. Reflective objects like metal shovels that could notify passerby stayed either in the tent or in trash bags. There was enough equipment on the site to fill two pickup trucks.
Finkel spends the night in the campsite in “the kind of total quiet that literally made my ears ring” (65). He sleeps 12 hours in those conditions—his longest sleep in years.
Chapters 7-11 Analysis
The perspective shifts to Finkel as he becomes an active participant. From the start, the writer is an unrequested presence in Knight’s life first by sending letters and then by visiting him unannounced. At the same time, Finkel is considerate of Knight’s communication needs, and throughout the book, Finkel never treats the hermit as a means for a juicy story.
The letters foretell Knight’s speaking style and preoccupations. His handwriting is close together, and he is both formal and prone to changing subjects and ending letters abruptly. His preference towards the lesser-known works of The Jungle Book writer Rudyard Kipling, an advocate of English colonialism, is an indicator of both his extensive reading habits and his conservative viewpoints. However, he also relates to a National Geographic article that Finkel sends him about the Hazda tribe of Tanzania, and he sends his first letter on the back of a picture of an elder, Onwas, who also didn’t keep track of years and enjoyed endless leisure time.
Finkel also begins covering the history of hermits. Records of ancient hermits go back 5,000 years; they appear in The Epic of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia and receive praise from the Chinese philosopher Confucius. This also marks an early contrast between Finkel’s romanticism and Knight’s pragmatism. When Finkel notes that his camp’s layout seems intentionally harmonious and tranquil, Knight retorts, “Do you think I was engaging in feng shui?” (65)
The fact that Finkel fails several times to find the campsite, even though he is an experienced camper and knows where he’s going, demonstrates just how effective the site’s natural defenses are and why Knight was able to remain hidden for so long. He also benefits from Maine’s lenient culture, which tolerates odd behavior and trespassing more than other states like Texas. The campsite is a marvel of ingenuity, as Knight repurposed stolen goods as flooring, water units, and other necessities. It also shows how vital stealing was to his way of life.
