God of the Woods by Liz Moore

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

For decades, campers have come to Camp Emerson, located on the Van Laar Preserve.  They’re children of well-to-do parents, sent to build “life-long friendships” (connections that may be useful later on), and to learn self-sufficiency and survival skills. The wealthy and influential Van Laar family lives nearby in a large house named “Self Reliance,” but the running of the camp is handled by employees, mostly people from town who depend on the jobs at the camp each summer.

The summer of 1975 starts out like any other, except this year Barbara, daughter of Peter and Alice Van Laar, is attending.  Barbara is not like the other campers, what with her almost indecently short shorts, black army boots, dyed black hair, and something like a dog collar around her neck.  The other kids are both shocked and fascinated. Confident and calm, Barbara seems to fit easily into camp life.

And then she disappears.

Alarms are raised, and search parties set out. It’s almost déjà vu for some: a few years earlier, another child went missing.

He was Barbara’s older brother.

He was never found.

The reviews on this book were almost polar opposites:  people either loved it or hated it with equal passion.  I moved from one camp to the other.  The first two thirds of the book was, I admit, a trudge for me.  The author uses multiple viewpoints—another camper, a counselor, townspeople, Alice Van Laar, a police officer—and also bounces these views around in time. It wasn’t especially confusing, but it was frustrating because there wasn’t really a chance become emotionally involved with the characters due to the narrative switching characters and times so frequently. Alice Van Laar is used more often than most, but the time changes back and forth, giving views of Alice as a naïve young woman, a mother, and a deeply unhappy wife. It’s like pieces of a mosaic; the reader only gets the big picture near the end, when all the pieces come together.  This is a master class in the art of showing, not just telling. 

When it was done, I felt the payoff was worth it.  I still have questions, and I still wonder about what happened to some characters, but that for me is the mark of a good book.  I can certainly see why it was a very popular book club book, because there is a lot to unpack and discuss—one of those books that as soon as you finish it, you want to find someone else who has read it so you can talk about it.  It turned out to be a book I enjoyed very much and one I will remember and recommend—but with a warning that the first part is a bit of a chore.