9/10

A shocking and unnerving exploration of trauma, deceit, guilt, and what it means, at the end of the day, to be a "good" or a "bad" person. A truly adult novel, and one of the most psychologically astute I've read. Brilliant throughout.

One of the saddest books I have ever read about a man who did terrible things, cannot forgive himself for them and ruins his own life and his wife's too because of it. Or maybe its about a sociopath who was always capable of terrible things and just needed a war to draw them out.

It's a little shaggy around the edges, not as clean as Tim O'Brien's best book 'The Things They Carried" but still the work of a master storyteller obsessed by the subjects of pain, grief, memory and running away from all of it.

The thing about Tim O'Brien...that's a terrible way to start a sentence, but I'll go with it. The thing about Tim O'Brien is that he has a book for every reader.

He's got old school craft, but is dazzlingly versatile, without being showy.

The Things They Carried will always be, to me, one of the achievements of 20th-century writing in English, of any genre. Going After Cacciato is terrific, too, though perhaps it's reached a slightly smaller audience.

I finally got around to In the Lake of the Woods, which looks at life through multiple layers of glass and mirrors, O'Brien here writes in the style of a thriller, but without sacrificing character, humanity, or life; there's an election; a married couple; there was there relationship; there was Vietnam; there was before that a childhood, a family. O'Brien throws a scrim of PR and politics over the whole thing, and yet the characters and their stories are never muddled; always sharp and clear, or as clear as life, family, and relationships can be. O'Brien excels at the unpretentious; he has no easy answers, and doesn't lead his reader to any. Did people come out of Vietnam with troubles? Obviously. Did some of them go into Vietnam with troubles? Certainly. Is war problematic? Yes. Are a lot of things? We know the answer to that. He doesn't blame or defend, but like the rare best storytellers, he shows, and shows, and shows. We see so much and it's painful how much we are a loss, up through the end, to answer any questions, or solve any problems, despite the reams and reams of evidence.

It's just stunning. A page turner on which the position of your stomach in your body often depends. Just read it, already!

Politics was manipulation. Like a magic show: invisible wires and secret trapdoors. He imagines putting a city in the palm of his hand, making his hand into a fist, making the city into a happier place. Manipulation, that was the fun of it.

This was an intense, gruelling character study of a truly frightening man, but it was so challenging and original in structure, and the writing itself was phenomenal. There isn’t a wasted word here, even though we hear dozens of voices and seemingly unconnected facts and statements that were all over the place. The effect is chilling, horrifying and completely fascinating. For fans like me of Unravelling Oliver who can enjoy a book without in any way liking the main character, and who can survive not having their hand held and being given a definitive solution to the mystery.

One plus one equals zero.

The author plays completely fair with the clues, or completely manipulates us, and a close reading will tell you exactly what you need to know, and exactly nothing at all. Do we ever even find out who the omniscient existential narrator/curator is, whose voice is heard in the footnotes? This is a book that deserves a reread to find out.

It’s interesting how ominous and amazing this book is. There’s no happy ending, it’s unique, and leaves the reader thinking. The evidence chapters I found were a unique way of reflection and good components in the book. I couldn’t put it down! I read The Things they Carried two months ago, and this book is similar yet so different. The mysteries of John Wade remind me of Caleb/Cal in East of Eden. The need for love driving him to almost a point of insanity sometimes and manipulation is truly articulated well in this book. I think what’s almost amazing about this is that almost everyone has that darkness inside them. That sort of craving for love, But seeing an extensive version of this mystery in a book character, and transcending into the darkness of his mind is remarkable. I definitely recommend this. It’s a rather easy read, but the book takes you deep into depths beyond human existence and emotion. It’s dark and beautiful, yet a thrilling and terrifying war story. Hey

4.5. Fantastic.

On the surface, this book is about the wife, Kathy Ward, of a politician, John Ward, who goes missing. But In the Lake of the Woods is really about PTSD.

It begins with John Wade’s election loss and subsequent disappearance of Kathy. Then the story unfolds quite like puzzle pieces forming the puzzle; we go back to John’s childhood, John and Kathy meeting and dating, John fighting in the Vietnam War, and John’ and Kathy’s political life. Interspersed are sections of quotes from interviews, trials, and books.

Anyone who has read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, one of my favorite books, knows he is masterful at describing the Vietnam War. He writes about it with heart and depth. He does not shy away from the shocking violence and vicious brutality. In , the Mỹ Lai Massacre is the focus of his recounting of the Vietnam War; war crimes that would horrify anyone with a conscience.

I feel I should note, though it may already be understood, that in O’Brien’s writing in this book, the experiences and events of the Vietnam War are told from an American perspective. It’s good to keep in mind while massacres are described that no matter how horrified the characters are, they are the perpetrators. It should also be noted that O’Brien was not yet fighting in the War when the Mỹ Lai Massacre occurred; he was in the division that contained the unit that had committed the Massacre a year before his arrival. Read the footnotes; on page 199, for example, O’Brien gets candid.

While I will never fully understand PTSD caused by combat in the Vietnam War, I think I came as close as I ever will while reading this book. It’s pretty incredible how good O’Brien is at making it accessible without sugarcoating it. The parts of this book set during the War and those that describe John’s condition and Kathy’s observations are visceral. You, the reader, are not asked to like or dislike any of the characters; you are not asked to forgive or pity them. You are not given solid answers, either.

O'Brien gives you the different options for an ending. Decide for yourself. Whichever you choose, after closing this book, you'd feel glad that you've read it. Extraordinary. There's nothing like this among the 400+ novels that I've read so far.

An ex-Vietnam War army turned politician, John Wade has lost his bid to the Senate. He and his wife, Kathy are debt up to their necks. Married for almost 2 decades, Kathy, 38, has been dreaming of having a baby. Busy with his career, John thinks that it is not yet the right time or maybe there is a deeper reason: his unhappy childhood or the secret of what happened in Vietnam. One day, John wakes up and finds that Kathy is gone.

When we got married, did we tell all the stories of our past to our spouse? If the answer is no, how did we choose which ones to tell and which ones to keep to ourselves? Now that we are married, how much of our lives do we share with our spouse? When we arrive home at night, do we tell each and every detail of our day? How do we choose which ones to tell and which ones to keep to ourselves?

"Kill Jesus!" is what John shouts in his dream. Beware guys, your secret can come out while you are dreaming and your wife is just there by your side wondering what those nightmares mean. So, even if you don't share everything, if it stinks, it will be known to her sooner or later.

This book was recommended to me by 3 of my friends here in Goodreads. Three ladies. Maybe they think that I would probably learn a lesson from what happened to John and Kathy *chuckle*. Just kidding. O'Brien writing style is exceptional: At least 5 stories run in parallel (current, Vietnam, college days, John's childhood days and what could have probably happened) plus those chapters on exhibits which are composed of excepts from interviews related to the investigation of Kathy's disappearance or the John's war criminal case and even related literatures (quotes from Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, for example) on those. Normally, in this kind of storytelling approach, I would be confused and it would take me a long time to finish the book, e.g., The Known World by Edward P. Jones, as a recent read. But here, reading was a breeze and totally enjoyable because of its fresh approach and it leaves you a space to think: interpret the story and choose the ending that you want to believe happened.

Thanks J, S, and T. Keep on recommending! :)

When I was a freshman in college I took a humanities class that dealt with issues surrounding the Vietnam War. The professor was friends with Tim O'Brien, so we had a chance to meet the author immediately after reading 'The Things they Carried.' I remember being excited, and I remember briefly chatting with him and getting an autograph after his talk. But what I remember most is how upset many of my classmates were when O'Brien explained that the book really was fiction, that he had made it up. I think there was an expectation, somehow, that he had lived and experienced ALL of it, every excruciating detail. I thought the anger directed at him was a little misplaced, and a little silly, but I appreciated how people felt. The book wasn't billed as nonfiction; it just read like nonfiction.

So now it's almost 25 years later; crazily, about the same amount of time has gone by as passed between the actual Vietnam War and that class I took. I find a copy of 'In the Lake of the Woods' at the Strand bookstore in New York for six bucks, and O'Brien, I soon realize, is still doing the same thing. This novel, mostly terrifying and unrelentingly dark, includes elements that give it the feel of a researched investigation into the disappearance of the wife of a disgraced politician and Vietnam Vet. The chapters called 'Hypothesis' speculate on what happened after Kathy was discovered missing from the couple's Northern Minnesota retreat, following John's failed bid to become a Senator. Other chapters called 'Evidence' are also sprinkled throughout the book, and they contain a discombobulating mix of fictional and real-world quotes, complete with appropriate footnote citations. This includes testimony from those involved in the My Lai Massacre, in which John was gruesomely caught up. A narrator then comments in footnotes-on-the-footnotes and it's hard to remember that this narrator is NOT, precisely, the author himself.

The structure of the novel will infuriate a good number of its readers, just as O'Brien infuriated so many of my freshman classmates back in 1993; you gather pretty early on that there will be no nice tidy package resolution by the time you reach the end. But the writing is so compelling and the darkness so near-complete that you read on anyway, hoping for an eventual sign of warmth in the bitter Northern Minnesota wilderness.

There comes a time when you question your own sanity. This time of year is particularly conducive to it. Spending an hour or two traveling a wasted winter landscape can do it to you too. You read a book like In the Lake of the Woods, and you might think you're pretty stable by comparison. But O'Brien will fuck with you. He'll teach you there is no truth. The only truth, he says, is the one you find by looking inward. But what if you're fucked? Then there is no truth.

Mary said this was a book about pain. About being haunted. That's definitely the case. This is the perfect cure to all the glib holiday gusto. Fake it til you make it, eh? How bout you just lay all the cards out on the table and take what comes? Cause it's going to catch up to you eventually. Quit running from it. If it's going to consume you, let it, and be done with it.

I really enjoyed Skippy Dies. Got it for my brother in law this year for Christmas. He laughed when he saw the title. "Your brother got me a book about a kid choking on donuts..." "--In the first couple pages, no less!" I felt a strong connection to all the characters in Skippy. It's hard to imagine feeling a stronger connection to anyone on the written page, but O'Brien did it. I grieved with these characters as though I was sitting right next to them, offering them a blanket and a warm cup of tea. I couldn't very well tell any of them it was gonna be all right because that would be untruthful, no truth or not. But I feel like I was given the opportunity to sit with them in order that I might somehow come out of it a better person. One of those life changing books. One of those that no matter how hard you scrub, you'll never erase the weight it left you to carry. And you don't want to. If it were to leave, a part of yourself would then be missing. And like the characters here, you would be damned to wander the Lake forever, searching, searching.

This was a very fucked up story, involving one seriously fucked up guy, a fucked up childhood, a fucked up marriage, and probably the most notoriously fucked up incident coming out of America's most fucked up war. I respect it as a piece of well-crafted literature, but I certainly can't say I enjoyed it.