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by: Tim O'Brien
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780140250947
ISBN: 0140250948
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: September 01, 1995
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Sales Rank: 131079
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Pursued by rumors of the atrocities he committed in Vietnam, a politician and his wife seek refuge in a cabin in Minnesota, where a mystery unfolds, in this widely acclaimed, best-selling novel. Reprint. National ad/promo. NYT.
Amazon.com Review:
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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Mystery and depth
In the Lake of the Woods is an amazing journey into memory ands madness - the madness of war, the madness of past sins, the madness of staying with someone you are scared of. This book is not easy. It takes you into various levels of uncertainty and mystery. We all live with our pasts. Some are more fraught with pain than others, but all shape who we are today. The main characters of In the Lake of the Woods, John and Kathy, both have many layers of hurt and pain to deal with. There are many ... Read More
Rating: - The mystery of the human heart
"What drives me on, I realize, is a craving to force entry into another heart, to trick the tumblers of natural law, to perform miracles of knowing. It's human nature. We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others, and we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by scientific investigation those leaden walls that encase the human spirit, that define it and guard it and hold it forever inaccessible. ("I love you," someone says, and instantly we begin to wonder -- "Well, how ... Read More
Rating:  - interesting... another hit from O'Brien
Tim O'brien caught my attention in his book "the things they carried" and again did not disappoint me with "in the lake of the woods".. the complex, unique style of O'brien really gets the mind working and keeps the pages turning.
Rating: - In the Mind of PTSD
As always, Tim O'Brien's writing style is amazing, surprising. His structure is enjoyable to read, and re-read. I'll likely read this book again within the next few years just for the great description and prose.
However, as much as I enjoyed the style, it took me a few chapters to get into the story. Had I not previously read a couple of O'Brien's other books, I might not have granted it as much time as I did. Luckily, I did give the book a chance because as soon as the story picked ... Read More
Rating:  - The Dustin Hoffman School Of Writing...
SPOILERS.
This is the only O'Brien book I have read so far (though I hope to read "The Things They Carried" soon). And while I initially enjoyed the first half of the book, the second half was somewhat of a chore to get through.
For me, the constant hammering on John Wade's two possible motivations (dear old Dad and Vietnam) was numbing at first but then crossed the line into insulting.
The analogy (or is it metaphor - I *always* forget) of the Sorcerer/magician crap ... Read More
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