I had a love hate relationship with this book. It was so depraved that I wondered about the mental health of the author. But the writing and suspense were excellent. The author left the reader with a degree of wonder at the end- no neat wrap ups or happy endings - just like real life.

processing this one slowly. I see the dislikes but O'brien has trapped himself a bit by writing TTTC (which is just that good) because this arguably lacks some of the thematic variety. BUT. It forces you to reflect on interpretation, on reflection itself, in a way that's structurally exciting. And it concludes quite profoundly.

Tim O'Brien writes pretty much exclusively about Vietnam. In each outing he seems to explore a different facet of the war, or of life afterward.

In the Lake of the Woods is in a way a mystery that serves as a metaphor for post traumatic stress disorder. John Wade, a veteran, and his wife retreat to a cabin in Minnesota after he loses a bid for the United States Senate–Loses after the very events he has spent years hiding from everyone (including himself) are brought to light in the press.

John wakes up after an emotional breakdown to find his wife gone and very little memory of what happened. The rest of the book is divided between the search for her, descriptions of his past, and suppositions about what happened to her.

The success of this book is not the mystery. If you're looking for a whodunit, you're not going to find it, and O'Brien is open about that. But that just serves as part of the success of the book, which is hinting at what it must be like to live with what veterans live with. Every facet of John's postwar life works as a facet of keeping the pain within himself. He cannot trust the woman he loves. His political career serves as a great metaphor for putting on a public face. The way he is haunted by questions of whether he was capable of murder

Obviously, most readers won't have experienced the things O'Brien experienced in Vietnam, but he works very hard to give a taste, infusing text from writings on dealing with Post Traumatic Stress. And though there is a lot going on in it, and it doesn't necessarily form a clear narrative, this is the most direct of any of O'Brien's books that I've experienced.

While Denis Johnson's 'Tree of Smoke' may be the single best American novel about the Vietnam war, Tim O'Brien, who has made writing 'Nam stories into something of a cottage industry, has put out three terrific books that, taken as a whole, achieve something far more compelling and significant. The first, 'The Things They Carried,' is an extremely personal look into the dehumanization and commodification of the war, told with faux-bureaucratic detachment as a series of inventory lists. The second, 'Going after Cacciato,' is a surreal black farce, the 'Catch-22' of its generation. 'In the Lake of the Woods,' by contrast is set decades after the war, and deals with its irreversible aftereffects. In a worst-case scenario of PTSD, a seemingly successful veteran abruptly and spectacularly melts down in a tragedy of epic proportions. This ostensible war hero, an up-and-coming politician, was a participant in some particularly horrendous wartime carnage, and 20 years of denial has only succeeded in boiling his guilt down into a corrosive, explosive concentrate. Unlike Johnson, O'Brien is a Vietnam veteran, and it shows - not in portraying the details of the wartime experience, which Johnson nails just as accurately, or even in the moral ambiguities of war, but rather in the very specific ways that it annihilates the moral compass and makes men go mad.

Going to lay this review out in two parts: (1) the structure and writing; and (2) the story and content.

(1) I loved the way this was written. The back and forth between Wade and Kathy’s love story, wade’s childhood, Vietnam, and the “evidence”. The writing itself is really well done. Not sure how to describe it other than it just flows. Lots of sentence variety.

(2) I’m less sold on the story. I’d have to give it more thought but it’s really a story of trauma. The trauma is intergenerational. It does not leave and it affects others. It’s also a story about politics and theatre. A sort of psychological examination of politicians in a way which I’ve never thought about before. Their whole life is oriented around what others think. Constantly seeking acceptance and fearing rejection. By the ignorant masses. It must be a lonely life. I’d like to read some Caro now.

Part murder mystery, part Vietnam war novel, and part examination of a marriage exposed against the pressures of fate, fortune, and two people struggling to find themselves. In The Lake Of The Woods is a fine book written by a real talent. Tim O'Brien holds high rank in the literary world for good reason. He tells a hell of a story using a craftsman's tools.

A politician and his wife, John and Kathy Wade, retreat to a remote cabin by a lake to reassess and maybe rethink their future after John suffers a crushing defeat in a senatorial election caused by ghosts from his past returning to haunt him in the media. While there, Kathy mysteriously goes missing, and her husband may or may not be responsible. The authorities and locals get involved, and much suspicion falls on John. Cue the plight of the search parties separated by harrowing flashbacks of John's childhood, his time in Vietnam, and his history with Kathy.

It's an excellent read with a great pace that shines a light on the holes that can tear open in the human heart, showing just how deep and dark they can go. The only thing I didn't like was the lack of closure by the end of the novel. Understandable, since that is a main theme in the book, but I'd still like to have something tie up by the end of a story. Instead we're left with a lot of different possibilities and theories, without any one of them seeming more likely than the other. A bit of a let down when you get to the last page and still want to know exactly what happened.

Otherwise, a recommended read.

Good book, good language, strong and poignant message about the things we do to ourselves for the sake of ideals/love/happiness/whatever.

I liked the book. It was good and the message was strong. This is not something you read to find out what happened to John and Kathy at Lake of the Woods but what made them who they were up to the point where the story begins. It's a story about what makes a person who he/she is, the choices, the delusions, the hopes and dreams, the failures, and sometimes, the magic that can keep us moving forward towards something that seems great. This is a story about what happens when the magic spell is broken and reality comes through full-force--and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a rough ride.

I enjoyed the delivery of the story: John's childhood, John in College/Vietnam/Back from the War, John in the present, Evidence/Interviews, and Hypothesis over what happened to Kathy. It switches things up and comes across as a researched biography over the mystery (sometimes) and then we're given the story at others.

I didn't really like the book. I didn't think it was amazing (inventive and quality, yes). I liked the story's ability to relate with the real world (I've heard O'Brien is a fan of verisimilitude) and real people. I felt it was done better in The Things They Carried, though that is comparing apples to oranges.

If you enjoy Tim O'Brien, read this book. It's short, regardless of the version you pick up. I don't recommend reading it in one sitting like I did. Digest the information, see what's happening, and then move forward (chunk as best you can). Worth a read, at the least.

"The ambiguity may be dissatisfying, even irritating, but this is a love story. There is no tidiness. Blame it on the human heart."

Tim O'Brien has reached that place beyond review in my heart. I can no longer be impartial when it comes to his work. I'm a die-hard. His prose is akin to gravy dripping off a squeaky cheese curd on a hot poutine: perfection. 'In the Lake of the Woods' only intensified my love for his writing.

The story is a patchwork quilt of memories, observations, interviews, and hypotheses surrounding a married couple on the verge of a breakdown. John Wade is a Vietnam war veteran who has lost a major political campaign. Together, John and his wife Kathy escape the aftermath of his defeat by travelling to a remote cabin. In the calm of the natural landscape, the illusion they project of the perfect couple vanishes. Then one of them disappears.

O'Brien has a way of weaving nature into his prose. No other author I've read can do what he does. It's immersive and grounds his plots in an almost ethereal light. You're left unsteady, balanced precariously between reality and make-believe. Memory, truth and desire are at constant war with each other. The water's current can pull you in any direction it wants, you can fight it, but you don't have a choice.

The malleability of memory is also of interest to O'Brien. Particularly; how we remould bits of our pasts to make them cleaner, more presentable. Whether this is intentional or a subconscious act, everyone does it at some point. In that way, everyone is a stranger. As O'Brien writes, "our fathers, our wives and husbands: Do we truly know them? How much is camouflage?"

This was a BOTM read for me. I finished it. I found no redeeming qualities in either of the main characters. To me they were flat and undimensionalble. The ending was no ending. It was a bit tedious to read the writing, which went backwards and forwards and sideways, sideways were footnotes to give it a more scholarly effect. It just did not work for me.

There was some background, but not nearly enough on Kathy, so I have no clue why she married and stayed with John. I found that because I could not find redeeming qualities for him, that I lacked respect for her.

John was damaged to begin with, his father being an alcoholic,and commiting suicide add to that John was a part of the My Lei massacre in Viet Nam. Hence more damage. He was active in politics, and succesful for a time, until the skeletons fell out of the closet. PTSD, probably, or tertiary syphyllis?

Kathy vanished, John drove a boat and disappeared. There. Anticlimactic. It would have had some punch if something had been found, anything, shoes, the vanished boat, the gas can, or perhaps a body part later on, but nope they just vanished.

Maybe this was all a dying man's fantasy, ala LOST.

Two stars, I was being generous.

This is a tragic, amazing, far-reaching novel that reminded me of Gone Girl with the disappearing wife and her suspected husband, The Shining with its obscenely tormented male protagonist, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon with the woman on her own in the wilderness, determined to survive. Plus the fantasy-like setting of the Vietnam War, with its unreality, horror, and emotional detachment, that is unique to Tim O’Brien.
Vietnam is only the backdrop to one man’s emotional anguish and mental breakdown. While the My Lai massacre is treated as the atrocity it was, the murdered boys and girls are only props to the more important side of the story: the effects it had on the American soldiers. This surely isn’t right. Well, it’s not politically correct anyway. Tim O’Brien is a brilliant writer, but he’s turned the Vietnam War into a strange fantasy world. At least in this book and The Things They Carried. He’s made it all artistic, and I’m both grateful for the beautiful, philosophical writing that’s come out of his experience, and angered by his complete America-centrism. But I’m also grateful for that viewpoint, because it’s what I know, and it’s what he knows, and so it’s honest and real. He’s not trying to write what he doesn’t know just because it would be politically correct. It would be presumptuous, too, although I’m sure a writer like Tim O’Brien could go into the mind of the Other very well.
Garry Mulholland wrote that Vietnam references should be banned, unless they’re made by someone Vietnamese. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I’d like to know more of the Vietnamese perspective on that utterly meaningless, destructive war. Even though it’ll be hard.
My dad told me that writers who have been in the Vietnam War can only write about that. I’m not sure that’s true—Tim O’Brien is the only one I’ve read so far. I have more reading to do.

Edit: My dad says he never said that.

"John Wade, you've just lost a big election and have been publicly shamed. What are you going to do next?"

"I'm going to Disney World a remote cabin by a lake where I can ruminate, lick my wounds, and possibly murder my wife!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yep, when a lady vanishes, who's the number one suspect? In this case, it just might be the husband. Through flashbacks, we learn all about John, and the more we know, the less we like him.

In early November he began spying on her. He felt some guilt at first, which bothered him, but he also found satisfaction in it.

Then, there's this . . .

He moved with determination across the surface of his life, attending to a marriage and a career. He performed the necessary tricks, dreamed the necessary dreams. On occasion though, he'd yell in his sleep --- loud, desperate, obscene things --- and Kathy would reach out and ask what was wrong. Her eyes would betray visible fear. "It wasn't even your voice," she'd say. "It wasn't even you."

O'Brien manages to work yet another very compelling Vietnam story into this one, but that plot line sadly takes a backseat to the main story. I found it interesting that, though this book predates Gone Girl by almost two decades, there's that similar unsettling vibe of an unlikable man who has trouble working up a public display of grief over his missing wife.

" . . . it might help to start acting like a husband. Some normal concern, it'll look real sweet to people."

Gillian, did you read this book before writing your mega-seller?

Anyway, I found this to be quite a page-turner, but was ultimately left unsatisfied.

Then there was the problem of timing.

A really creepy guy who loses an election, and may or may not have murdered his pretty blond wife?



Dun-dun-duhn!

Better run, Heidi!

wowzaaa this is a well crafted book. the different bits so perfectly woven together, very satisfying to read. it's all about magic tricks and tbh the real magic trick is making john wade a perfectly ambiguous character. ugh, just such impressive writing. word of warning, though, it's *very* dark.