[.ca] In the Lake of the Woods: A Novel (ISBN 061870986X)

From Amazon.com:
Tim O'Brien has been writing about Vietnam in one way or another ever since he served there as an infantryman in the late 1960s. His earliest work on the subject, If I Die in a Combat Zone, was an intensely personal memoir of his own tour of duty; his books since then have featured many of the same elements of fear, boredom, and moral ambiguity but in a fictional setting. In 1994 O'Brien wrote In the Lake of the Woods, a novel that, while imbued with the troubled spirit of Vietnam, takes place entirely after the war and in the United States. The main character, John Wade, is a man in crisis: after spending years building a successful political career, he finds his future derailed during a bid for the U.S. Senate by revelations about his past as a soldier in Vietnam. The election lost by a landslide, John and his wife, Kathy, retreat to a small cabin on the shores of a Minnesota lake--from which Kathy mysteriously disappears. Was she murdered? Did she run away? Instead of answering these questions, O'Brien raises even more as he slowly reveals past lives and long-hidden secrets. Included in this third-person narrative are "interviews" with the couple's friends and family as well as footnoted excerpts from a mix of fictionalized newspaper reports on the case and real reports pertaining to historical events--a mélange that lends the novel an eerie sense of verisimilitude. If Kathy's disappearance is at the heart of this work, then John's involvement in a My Lai-type massacre in Vietnam is its core, and O'Brien uses it to demonstrate how wars don't necessarily end when governments say they do. In the Lake of the Woods may not be true, but it feels true--and for Tim O'Brien, that's true enough. --Alix Wilber

Unique and Therefore Compelling:
This book defys description. Is it a love story? Yes. A mystery? Yes. A thriller? Yes. Fiction? I don't know....and that's what makes it so compelling. This is a book for a reading group because it will elicit so many more questions than there are answers and after you've completed it, believe me, you're going to want to talk about it with someone else who's read it. The construct was terrific and as a result I book 2 more of O'Brien's books immediately. While both were good, neither matched the plot, suspense, and tempo of In the Lake of the Woods. I would recommend this book to anyone, but I especially think Vietnam Vets could really relate. Now, I'm off to try Tomcat in Love. Since O'Brien can write the serious scary stuff that only nightmares are made of, I want to see what he can do with humor and love. What a find. I'm so glad I found this book listed in Bas Bleu because I hadn't seen it hyped anywhere else.

Spellbinding:
After reading the initial short story that became O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," I found myself interested to read his other material. "In the Lake of the Woods" lives up to the same beautifully, haunting prose that makes up O'Brien's style. The "problem" (and I place this in quotes since I don't really see it as a problem) with O'Brien's work, is that one isn't sure whether he is writing fact or fiction. His memories of Vietnam that make up "The Things They Carried" make one question whether they are fact of fiction. (And I mention this here since the ghosts of Vietnam have their hold over the main character of this novel as well.) The same holds true for "In the Lake of the Woods." O'Brien uses character interviews and references, footnooted in the Evidence chapters to build his narrative to its climax. "In the Lake of the Woods" tells the story of a disintegrating marriage, that neither partner is ready to admit to. John and Kathy Wade have escaped to a cabin in the woods for two weeks until the world around them has calmed down. John is a politician who was slaughtered in the last election when the dark secrets of his past are revealed. And as a politician, he cannot have any "skeletons" in the closet (how apt that I read this in an election year). The two hardly communicate, their bond is fragile and their future uncertain. To complicate matters, John wakes up one morning to find Kathy missing. The locals suspect foul play; John claims he is innocent, but he is not above reproach. The novel then sets about trying to uncover the mystery not only of Kathy's disappearance, but of John's secret past. O'Brien has again proven himself a master story-teller. One is immediately enthralled by the main characters and their mysteries. While reading, one is torn between like and dislike for John Wade, known to his war buddies as the magician, and one wonders just what tricks he has up his sleeves. The tricks that O'Brien has are his vivid characters and beautiful prose. His chapters fluctuate between differing points of view to offering evidence to what happened, as well as to what might have happened. O'Brien ends his novel by giving the reader the ending, allowing them to choose the scenario they like best. This is the only way a novel of such depth and intrigue could have ended; leaving a mystery unsolved, as though the "facts" of the story were real. Perhaps they are.

Hununa's take on Tim O'Brien:
Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods is written in a similar style to the rest of his fiction books. He uses scattered information to get the reader in a similar mindset as the main character. In the Lake of the Woods deals with John Wade, a failed senator dealing with problems in his marrige. A war veteran, John Wade owed his unhappy childhood to his father's suicide. Instead of dealing with these pains openly, he tended to brood and harm less lively beings, such as plants. His wife, Kathy, had dealt with his absense during the war, the constant stalking when she returned, however once John's political career seemed to finish, problems between them increased.Kathy then dissapears, and at this point O'Brien branches off with two different choices for the reader to decide on. Was Kathy's dissapearence her own choice, or did John decide her future? Reading through friend and family interviews, you must decide for yourself. This book is an excellent example of the emotional damage war veterans must deal with, and reading John's solutions may aid the reader in their final descision, as well as dealing with war veterans in their own life.

Boring:
Not that interesting. I finished reading it for the sake of getting it off my chest, or should I say book shelf? Vietnam war stories and Love just don't mix.

A politician is always a politician.:
This story concerns a failed politician who moves into a cabin in the woods to lick his wounds. The scenery as described is absolutely gorgeous, and the lake plays a big part in the absence of his wife. His despondency about the loss of an office he should have had and his lack of any kind of successful future leads him to do some very strange things. When the loving wife is gone, he tries to lead the police astray with the idea that she took the boat out and rowed away all the way to Canada. No body was ever found, so we really don't know what happened as the writer gives suppositions of how she would have disappeared on her own and the reasons for doing so. The fact that he spent so much time in the boathouse the night of her disappearance certainly makes one suspicious of his actions. When the heat gets too much for him, his neighbor (who loves to dauble in politics) lends him a good motorboat and a cell phone; he too disappears into the night. Suspenseful and well-written, this story can be seen in your imagination as the author spins a webb of beauty in nature in the woods on the lake. Too bad I can't swim or I might be tempted to search out such a place.