Adverse to charity, Knight would not accept packages left by people who had hoped that by giving him supplies, he would not enter their cottages - his version of pulling himself up by the bootstraps. Knight’s decades of theft had their impact, with residents in the neighbouring towns describing their anxiety. With Knight’s skill, unique desires, and Thoreau-esque commitment to his lifestyle was also a strain of selfishness. What causes pause, however, is how much the author is enamoured with his subject. The Stranger in the Woods is an easy and fun read. Nevertheless, the story is compelling, and Finkel’s punchy style (to the point and fast-paced) helps move along what could otherwise devolve into boredom. He left society, lived in a forest, stole from people - repeat for nearly three decades.

Knight was a quiet man who liked solitude, and while his circumstances and decisions are not average, his story is fairly one-note.

While the story is certainly unusual, it’s not all that extraordinary. While in prison, journalist Michael Finkel began a correspondence, and semi-friendship, with Knight, which would become the basis of his book, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. Over that time, he survived by his skills - he was capable of making it through the deadly cold of the winter, unaided - but also by theft, which was ultimately his downfall when he was finally arrested. Leaving everything behind and telling no one, he ventured into the forests of Maine where he’d live alone for the next 27 years. In 1986, 20-year-old Christopher Knight left society.

Stranger in the woods book