View north from a fire tower on Apple Pie Hill, the highest point in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

Pine barrens, pine plains, sand plains, or pinelands occur throughout the northeastern U.S. from New Jersey to Maine (see Atlantic coastal pine barrens) as well as the Midwest and Canada.

Pine barrens are plant communities that occur on dry, acidic, infertile soils dominated by grasses, forbs, low shrubs, and small to medium sized pines.

The most extensive barrens occur in large areas of sandy glacial deposits, including outwash plains, lakebeds, and outwash terraces along rivers.

Description[link]

Botany[link]

The most common trees are the Jack Pine, Red Pine, Pitch Pine, Blackjack Oak, and Scrub Oak; a scattering of larger oaks is not unusual. The understory is composed of grasses, sedges, and forbs, many of them common in dry prairies. Plants of the heath family, such as blueberries and bearberry, and shrubs such as prairie willow and hazelnut are common. These species have adaptations that permit them to survive or regenerate well after fire.

Fauna[link]

Pine barrens support a number of rare species, including lepidoptera such as the Karner Blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) and the barrens buck moth (Hemileuca maia), and plants such as the Sand-plain Gerardia (Agalinis acuta).

Fire ecology[link]

Barrens are dependent on fire to prevent invasion by less fire tolerant species. In the absence of fire barrens will proceed through successional stages from pine forest to a larger climax forest, such as oak-hickory forest.

European settlers found extensive areas of open game habitat throughout the East, commonly called "barrens". The American Indians used fire to maintain such areas as rangeland.^[1] Open barrens are now rare and imperiled globally, as suppression of wildfires has allowed larger climax forest vegetation to take over in most one-time barrens. In North America, barrens exist primarily in the American Midwest and along the east coast.

In literature[link]

In 1968, John McPhee published a book, titled The Pine Barrens, exploring the history, ecology and geography of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, infused with his own personal memoirs.^[2]

See also[link]

• Atlantic coastal pine barrens
• Eastern savannas of the United States
• List of pine barrens
• Long Island Central Pine Barrens
• Pine Barrens (New Jersey)
• Serpentine barrens

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources^{[dead link]}
• Map of Northeastern Pitch Pine Barrens^{[dead link]}
• Pine Barrens in Rhode Island^{[dead link]}
• Historic and prehistoric changes in the Rome, New York pine barrens. In Northeastern Naturalist, 1999, by Frank E Kurczewski^{[dead link]}
• John McPhee (1968). The pine barrens. 

David Chase (born August 22, 1945) is an American writer, director, and producer of television series. Chase has worked in television for more than 30 years; he has produced and written for such shows as The Rockford Files, I'll Fly Away, and Northern Exposure. He has created two original series; the first, Almost Grown, aired for 10 episodes in 1988 and 1989. Chase is best known for his second original series, the influential and critically acclaimed HBO drama The Sopranos, which aired for six seasons between 1999 and 2007. A prominent figure in American television, Chase has won seven Emmy Awards.

Early life[link]

Chase was born in Mount Vernon, New York. An Italian-American,^[1] Chase grew up in a small garden apartment in Clifton, New Jersey^[2] and in North Caldwell.^[3] Chase has stated that as a child he had many issues with his parents, whom he feels were overbearing.^[2] He grew up watching matinée crime films and was well known as a creative storyteller during his childhood.^[4] Chase claims his father was an angry man who belittled him constantly as a child and his mother was a "passive-aggressive drama queen" and "a nervous woman who dominated any situation she was in by being so needy and always on the verge of hysteria. You walked on eggshells." One of his characters on the HBO original series The Sopranos, Livia Soprano, is based on his mother. Chase struggled with panic attacks and severe depression as a teenager, something he still deals with today. He graduated from high school in 1964 and attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where his depression worsened. "I slept 18 hours a day," Chase later stated. He described his problems as "what's come to be known as normal, nagging, clinical depression. It was awful."^[2] He also worked as a drummer during this period, and held aspirations of being a professional musician.^[4] After two years, he transferred to New York University (NYU), where he announced his decision to pursue a career in film, a decision that was not well-received by his parents. He went on to attend Stanford University's School of Film.

Career[link]

Before creating and developing The Sopranos, Chase started in Hollywood as a story editor for Kolchak: The Night Stalker and then produced episodes of Northern Exposure and The Rockford Files, among other series. He also worked as a writer while on The Rockford Files—a show which he worked on in various capacities for more than four years.^[2] He won several Emmys, including one for a television movie, the story of a runaway he scripted in 1980.^[2] After The Rockford Files run ended the same year, Chase worked in numerous television jobs until he wound up in charge of Northern Exposure in 1993.^[2] Chase worked in relative anonymity before The Sopranos debuted.^[2] Inspired as a youth by the film The Public Enemy,^[4] Chase created the critically and commercially successful show by drawing heavily on his own personal life; the character of Livia Soprano is modelled after his own mother.^[5] In a recent interview Chase stated that he experienced frustration for a long period with being unable to break out of the TV genre and into film over this time.^[2] In 2000, David Chase was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award. In 2005, Chase received a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his entire body of work. He participated as arranger of On the Record musical.

His first original created series was Almost Grown in 1988, with Eve Gordon and Timothy Daly.^[6] Although the one-hour series was well-received by critics,^[7] only 10 episodes aired from November 1988 to February 1989.^[8]

[edit] The Sopranos

30 episodes of The Sopranos are explicitly credited to Chase. However, as the show's creator, showrunner and head writer he had a major role in all of the scripts, including producing and touching up each script's final draft.^[9] He also directed the pilot episode and the series finale (both of which he also wrote). Of the controversial final scene of the series finale, Chase said, "I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there."^[10]

Future projects[link]

[edit] A Ribbon of Dreams

David Chase is in works to develop A Ribbon of Dreams, a mini-series for HBO. According to an HBO press release, the mini-series' pilot will "begin in 1913 and follow two men, one a college-educated mechanical engineer, the other a cowboy with a violent past, who form an unlikely producing partnership and together become pioneers and then powers for a time in motion pictures." Specifically, the two men will "begin as employees of D.W. Griffith, and then cross career paths with John Ford, John Wayne, Raoul Walsh, Bette Davis, Billy Wilder and others who gave shape to Hollywood as it grew from the age of rough-hewn silent Westerns, to the golden era of talkies and the studio system, to the auteur movement, to television, and finally to the present day."^[11][12]

[edit] Not Fade Away

David Chase is currently working on a new project for Paramount. Not Fade Away (2012) — Chase's feature film debut — centers on the lead singer of a teenage rock 'n' roll band (played by John Magaro) in 1960s New Jersey.^[13][14] Described as "a music-driven coming-of-age story," the film reunites Chase with James Gandolfini (the former star of The Sopranos will co-star as Magaro's father).^[13] Other cast members include Bella Heathcote, Christopher McDonald, Molly Price, Lisa Lampanelli, Jack Huston and Brad Garrett. Chase himself has described the film as about "a postwar, post-Depression era parent who has given his kid every advantage that he didn't have growing up, but now can't help feeling jealous of the liberated, more adventurous destiny his son is able to enjoy." Former Sopranos cast member Steven Van Zandt will serve as music supervisor and executive producer.^[15]

Personal life[link]

After graduating from NYU in 1968 Chase moved to California and married his high school sweetheart Denise Kelly.^[2] He is the father of actress Michele DeCesare who starred in The Sopranos as Hunter Scangarelo.^[16] Despite (or perhaps because of) his lengthy career within the medium Chase claims to "loathe and despise" television shows, only watching The Sopranos and otherwise preferring to watch films.^[17]:113

Awards and recognition[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Information about David Chase at HBO.com
• David Chase at the Internet Movie Database
• Debate regarding Sopranos finale at HBO.com

For the defunct avant-garde metal band from Kristiansand, Norway, see In the Woods...

In the Woods
Cover of In The Woods
Author(s)	Tana French
Country	Ireland
Language	English
Series	Dublin Murder Squad
Genre(s)	Mystery
Publisher	Viking Adult
Publication date	30 January 2007
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	496
ISBN	978-0-670-03860-2
OCLC Number	191864570
Dewey Decimal	823/.92 22
LC Classification	PR6106.R457 I52 2007
Followed by	The Likeness: A Novel

In the Woods is a 2007 mystery novel by Tana French about a pair of Irish detectives and their investigation of the murder of a twelve year old girl. The novel won several awards such as the 2008 Edgar Award for Best First Novel By An American Author,^[1] the 2008 Barry Award for Best First Novel,^[2] the 2008 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel,^[3] and the 2008 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.^[4]

Plot[link]

Twenty years prior to the novel's events, twelve year-old Adam and his two best friends failed to come home after playing in the familiar woods bordering their Irish housing estate. A search is called by the families, and the police find Adam shivering, clawing the bark of a nearby tree, blood on his shoes and slash marks on his back. He is unable to tell them what happened or where his friends are. His amnesia holds to the present day, where he goes by his middle name, Rob, to avoid the attention of the media to his famous case. His friends were never found.

The plot of the novel circles around the murder of a twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, whose case Rob and his partner Cassie Maddox are given to investigate. The body is found in the same woods where Rob’s friends disappeared, at an archeological dig site, and the coincidence is enough to make Rob nervous, though he insists to his partner that he is fine.

Cassie and Rob have been partners for a few years and get along famously, teasing one another and completing one another’s thoughts. There are many rumors at the station that they are romantically involved, though both of them scoff at the idea, despite the fact that they live almost like a married couple, spending a lot of time at Cassie’s cooking dinner for one another, drinking wine, and having Rob crash on Cassie’s couch across the room.

Katy’s murder takes the pair along many lines of investigation. Her death might be related to her father’s protests against the new highway meant to go straight through the dig site, or one of the students on the dig might have attacked her. She might have been abused by her father or someone else (her mother, twin sister, or older sister) in the family. She might have been previously poisoned over time. Or it might be related to the disappearance of Rob’s friends, as a hair clip that one of his friends was wearing that day appeared near the crime scene.

These possibilities are investigated, but the detectives come up frustratingly empty-handed at every turn. The case messes with Rob’s psyche as he tries to remember details about the two previous disappearances in case it would help. He tries spending the night in the woods, but freaks out and calls Cassie to pick him up. He’s afraid to sleep again, thinking that he’ll just have nightmares, so Cassie allows him into her bed. Things escalate from there and they end up having sex.

Rob feels immensely awkward after and can’t go back to their normal jokey-insult ways, but also feels that he can’t start a relationship with her. Their partnership deteriorates just as they start to uncover new leads in the case and they are unable to discuss the case and get along the way they used to.

Rob goes back to the dig site alone, where all the students are frantically digging before the site is shut down for the construction of the highway. He comes to a realization and calls in the forensics team again, who discover the location of the murder in a shed to which only three people have the key. After some heavy interrogation, one of the suspects confesses, though his motive is far from clear.

It becomes clearer when the suspect contends that he had been dating Katy’s older sister, Rosalind. When questioned by Cassie, she denies it and any involvement in Katy’s death, but also makes a comment that Cassie is obviously sleeping with Rob. Cassie takes it in stride, but after the interrogation, she has an idea of how to get a confession out of Rosalind: Go to her and admit sleeping with Rob and promise to keep her updated on the case if she promises not to tell.

Rosalind’s psychopathic tendencies get the better of her, and once she knows that she has Cassie in her debt, she brags about the whole thing and how she got the murderer to come up with the idea by telling him that all three girls were being sexually abused by their father, but that Katy liked it and was therefore their father’s favorite. Rosalind also told him that Katy told their father lies to make him beat them and would watch and laugh, that if Katy was gone, then they would be happy. She also admitted to Cassie that Katy was strong-willed and wouldn’t always do as Rosalind told her, so she had poisoned her to make her sick. After this confession, recorded on a wire, Cassie arrests her and takes her in, but because Rosalind was a few months from turning 18 (though she had told Rob previously that she was already 18), the confession is invalid. She is released with a smug smile.

The Police Captain has learned that Rob is actually Adam Ryan and confines him to desk work. He never goes back to Detective work. Cassie starts dating someone else and gets engaged. Rob is heartbroken and calls her, but it’s too late. He goes to the dig site to see the highway construction has begun, and thinks that he’ll never regain his lost memories of that night.

Reception[link]

Thomas Gaughan of Booklist gave In the Woods a starred review and hailed it as “…a superior novel about cops, murder, memory, relationships, and modern Ireland. The characters of Ryan and Maddox, as well as a handful of others, are vividly developed… Equally striking is the picture of contemporary Ireland, booming economically and fixated on the shabbiest aspects of American popular culture. An outstanding debut and a series to watch for procedural fans.” ^[5] Publishers Weekly praised author French, saying she “… expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut” and that “Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma.” ^[5] Kirkus Reviews said of the novel, “When not lengthily bogged down in angst, a readable, non-formulaic police procedural with a twist. It’s ultimately the confession of a damaged man.” ^[6]

Awards and nominations[link]

• Edgar Award for Best First Novel By An American Author, 2008^[1]
• Barry Award for Best First Novel, 2008^[2]
• Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel, 2008^[3]
• Anthony Award for Best First Novel, 2008^[4]

References[link]