Book Review: The God of the Woods

Spoilers!

Within all of us is a wilderness where Pan, god of the woods, plays his flute. Sometimes we hear that siren song and like the namesake from which it derives, we panic. When panic may bloom is not so predictable as a wildflower. In Liz Moore’s 2024 literary thriller, The God of the Woods, panic becomes generational and the siren song that drowns out the truth. In so showcasing, Moore elucidates class division, societal expectations upon women (and men, for that matter), and the inherent struggle to come-of-age. With a deeply defined cast of characters and the unforgettable setting of the Adirondacks, Moore’s book is a triumph of thriller and thought.

The Van Laars have owned a section of the Adirondack Mountains since the late 19th century that has become something of a necessity for the local townsfolk to have well-paying jobs, no matter how poorly or off-putting the Van Laars may be to the “help.” The original Van Laar, or Peter I, toward the end of his life, started Camp Emerson on the property, to teach middle school-age kids how to survive in nature. Camp Emerson sits on that same section of Van Laars’ expansive home, ironically (given the townsfolk’s help in recreating it on the land) Self-Reliance. The further undercurrent of irony is that the rich wouldn’t survive in nature by themselves without said help. Part of the help is two-fold: the fellow rich family of the McLellans, who are defense attorneys, but also the actual survivalist types, the Hewitts. With the latter, Vic Hewitt is the original gamekeeper, if you will, who Peter I brought to the land and treated like a second son next to Peter II. His role morphs into then teaching the campers how to survive in nature.

But like all families and camp lore, the Van Laars also have a story that’s been passed down to new campers. The present events of the story unfold in the summer of 1975, but the lore is 1961, when the Van Laar’s son, Peter IV or Bear, goes missing as a child. Despite an extensive search, he’s never found. His mother, Alice, now on a regiment of sleeping pills, is never the same. So much so that she’s virtually negligent of her second child, a daughter named Barbara. Barbara is 13 in 1975, and has never attended Camp Emerson. Her parents are fine to offload her on Camp Emerson this summer due to her “troublesome ways.” Thankfully for Barbara, she has TJ Hewitt, Vic’s daughter, watching over her. And TJ has even more devotion, I think, to Barbara because she was also close to Bear and couldn’t save him, as it were. She was a child herself then though.

Camp Emerson begins with a cadre of new kids, including Tracy, who is a shy, somewhat socially stunted girl. The other campers don’t engage with her. However, Barbara quickly befriends Tracy, which makes Tracy cool to the others. Along with two other boys, the foursome provide the compelling, sweet coming-of-age elements of the book, including a classic round of truth-or-dare, underage drinking, and first kisses (and corresponding tears). Watching over this foursome and a few other campers is Louise, the camp counselor. In her mid-20s, she’s hopeful that she can earn enough money to rescue her younger brother, Jesse, from her alcoholic mother and give him a better life. Unfortunately, part of that calculation means becoming the fiancé to John Paul McLellan, who is the de factor Peter IV after Bear’s presumed death. John Paul is a violent, rageful abuser and alcoholic. He’s pathetic and lazy, going nowhere fast, buoyed only by his name and father’s money and connections. Still, for Louise, he represents a way out for her and Jesse. Little does Louise know, but John Paul’s been cheating on her with her counselor-in-training, Annabelle. Fortunately for Louise, like Barbara, she has TJ looking out for her, too. TJ is different, not only by virtue of being a girl who is a survivalist and probably stronger than most of the men at the Camp, but because by insinuation, she’s a lesbian.

Now, Tracy, who is bunkmates with Barbara, knows Barbara sneaks out each night to ostensibly meet with a boyfriend on the tower atop nearby Hunt Mountain. One time, Tracy asks Barbara what would happen if she missed one of those nights meeting with the “boyfriend.” Barbara vaguely and ominously says it wouldn’t be good. That sentiment takes on a different understanding at the end of the book.

Meanwhile, we get more backstory of Alice, who was set up with Peter III by her older sister, Delphine. Mind you, Alice is 17, and at that point, I think Peter III was in his early 30s. They marry shortly after Alice turns 18, and then soon thereafter, she births Peter III what he wanted: a boy. That was her utility. For Alice to be anything else would not be welcomed by Peter. He has no affection for her on any level, emotional, physical, or intellectual. She was an incubator to him and nothing more. Indeed, we later learn he preferred getting his jollies off with Delphine! Who seemingly had an open marriage with her husband and then was overcome with grief upon his sudden death. Oof. For her part, Alice was a good mother to Bear, or at least, tried to be, but Peter III kept interfering and preferred to have the housemaid take care of Bear. Alice took up drinking and became an alcoholic as catharsis.

Moore makes the juxtaposition of that aforementioned elucidation of the class divide quite literal in the book: While Camp Emerson is ongoing with kids, led by TJ Hewitt (Vic has suffered a stroke and finally stepped down as the gamekeeper who runs the camp), the Van Laars, McLellans, and other rich folk are throwing their annual party with plentiful drinking, debauchery, and poor treatment of the “help” at Self-Reliance. Of course, there is somewhat of a throughline, because like a classic camp scenario, the camp counselors, including Louise and Annabelle, get up to their own drinking and debauchery while the campers are sleeping. Ultimately, like that classic camp scenario, Barbara disappears while that’s going on. It’s Bear all over again, 14 years later.

Speaking of, we get more insight into what happened with Bear’s disappearance. The local volunteer fire department was first on the scene, including Carl Stoddard, who knows what it’s like to lose a child, having just lost his son. Carl learns from Peter II, Bear’s grandfather, that they were set to hike Hunt Mountain, but Bear forgot his pocketknife, so turned back to the house. He never returned to the hike and then a terrible storm occurred. That’s what Peter II said at least. As it turns out, Carl himself might have been the last person to witness Bear alive: tying his shoe in front of Self-Reliance. Because of that and Carl’s general closeness to Bear, suspicion falls on him. Then, he abruptly dies of a heart attack. Everyone, including the local Bureau of Investigation, presume he was the culprit and the case is effectively closed.

Back to Barbara’s disappearance in August 1975. The BCI is back on the scene, including the original investigator from 1961, who was promoted to chief because of the case, and is the only person the Peters will talk to. Yes, that’s right, Peter II is still around. But thankfully for this iteration of the BCI, they have a “First in the Nation” on their team, Judy, so nicknamed because she’s one of the first women investigators with the BCI. She has to deal with demeaning misogyny (even being addressed as “honey” is irritating) and doubting of her abilities, but she’s a clever investigator and determined to find out the truth. And to be fair, her partner and trainer, Denny Hayes, is helpful, as far as 1975 male behavior in a male-dominated profession goes. He encourages her throughout the investigation.

After Judy and Denny begin their investigation, Judy clocks how weirdly aggressive Peter II seems to be, which is terrific foreshadowing by Moore. Then, they zero in on Louise, who Denny actually knows through dating her mother, and eventually, John Paul. Witnesses said John Paul came back to the Self-Reliance party bloody and drunk, which at least makes him a person-of-interest. It had nothing to do with Barbara, though, as he got into a drunken fight with another man he thought was sleeping with Louise. For her part, they find drugs in a bag that they say belong to Louise (it was Annabelle’s). On that charge, they bring Louise to jail and then try to interrogate her to “give up” John Paul’s culpability. John Paul, after being arrested for DUI, is already blaming everything on Louise. What John Paul has going against him is Barbara’s bloody uniform in his trunk. What?!

Moore also throws in the red herring, which she doesn’t linger on too long, making it all the more possible, of Jacob Sluiter, a local serial killer and rapist who escaped from prison and the campers fear will return to the camp. The BCI wonders if he killed Barbara. After they’re able to re-capture him, Judy interviews Jacob because he will only talk to her (it felt very The Silence of the Lambs-like!). While it’s immediately clear Jacob had nothing to do with Barbara’s disappearance, he does know something about Bear’s. Or at least, he knows where Bear was buried. Whoa.

The whole Bear story ends up unfurling this way: During one of those Self-Reliance parties for the rich, Alice wanted to take Bear on the boat with her across Lake Joan, but she was clearly intoxicated. Peter III rebuffs her in front of everyone because he’s a jerk. Bear, though, who loves his mother and is much nicer than his father (including being nicer to the servants), decides to secretly join her anyway on the boat. But again, she is drunk and the boat capsizes. Bear drowns and dies. That’s when Pan, the god of panic, enters the story in earnest: the Peters decide to bury Bear’s body, which Jacob (and later we learn, TJ) oversaw, rather than allow for the public scandal to envelope their good family name. To his everlasting shame, the Peters cajole Vic into helping them. His motive is TJ, thinking that this land is the home she knows and through Peter I, could become partially theirs. Thanks to Judy’s efforts uncovering this, it not only means indicting the Peters for conspiracy to obstruct justice, but also means clearing Carl Stoddard’s name, much to the delight of his wife, who never stopped trying to clear his name, and his daughter, who begrudgingly worked for the Van Laars out of financial necessity.

So, then, what about Barbara? I never thought she was seeing a boyfriend, as she told Tracy. Instead, I started to think she used the lore of her brother’s disappearance to stage her own disappearance in order to runaway from her awful family, and before they could stick her in some faraway school. She did exactly that with the help of TJ, the person she was actually visiting each night to prepare. Moore brought it back around: When Barbara told Tracy it wouldn’t be good to miss a night with her “boyfriend,” she was right to convey that ominously, as everything was riding on her plan with TJ. During a survival night when Barbara accidently cut herself, she and TJ use that happy happenstance of her bloody clothes to frame the dirtbag John Paul. Vic and TJ own a cabin on a remote island. That’s where Barbara plans to stay for about the next five years until she turns 18 and can do as she pleases. She’s learned enough from TJ to survive on her own.

Thanks to the youngest camper at Camp Emerson who witnessed Barbara going into TJ’s cabin each night (originally wondering if it was a lesbian tryst) and Louise’s help, Judy pieces it all together and even takes a literal swim (she didn’t have a canoe) to the remote cabin to at least set eyes upon Barbara. She does, and swims back. She intentionally had no interest in being like the BCI investigator who used Bear’s disappearance and Carl’s good name for a promotion. She doesn’t want to drag Barbara back to a life she tried to escape. I loved that decision.

What a dynamic, fascinating book that kept me guessing almost to the end (Bear was harder to deduce than Barbara). Like the best creature or nature stories, the real danger in the book wasn’t a creature or nature or even a very human serial killer, but humans doing bad things for bad or misguided reasons. They panicked. As TJ remarks at one point, to panic is to be in opposition to the forest, to make it your enemy. To remain calm is to court it as a friend. A similar point could be made of our interactions with other humans.

While the thriller aspect and the general intrigue of a camp story with a camp setting is the hook of The God of the Woods, Moore’s capable storytelling hands keeps you in it with characters you care about facing adversity. Louise is just trying to do the right thing by her brother, but struggling in the face of circumstances. Judy is trying to do a difficult job in a male-dominated profession with parents who are trying to keep her in a box. Alice had no chance in hell of ever being someone with her own hopes and dreams or even someone who could let Bear blossom into his own, as he was always earmarked to be another Peter, the banker. TJ is looked down upon for being a woman of nature and “different.” Tracy is shunned by her peers for merely being shy and tall. Barbara is also shunned, but by her own parents, first because she’s not a boy, and second because they have no interest in nurturing her, so aloof are they in their richness.

All of these characters were compelling and complex. As she shifted from one to the other, Moore also maintained the propulsion of the thriller and never lost sight of the ultimate aim: to entertain, and entertain she did. I can’t wait to read more of Moore’s work!