On a lake deep in the Minnesota woods, Kathy Wade comforts her husband John, a rising political star, after a devastating electoral defeat. But it is clear that something is horribly wrong between them - too much has been hidden. Then Kathy vanishes, along with their boat.
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From the Back Cover
This remarkable new novel from the National Book Award-winning author of 'Going After Cacciato' and 'The Things They Carried' combines the power of the finest Vietnam fiction with the tension of a many-layered mystery. It begins in a remote lakeside cabin deep in the Minnesota forests, where Kathy Wade is comforting her husband John, an ambitious politician, after a devastating electoral defeat. Then one night she vanishes, and gradually the search for Kathy becomes a voyage into the darkest corners of John Wade’s life, a life of deception and deceit – the life of a man able to escape everything but the chains of his darkest secret.
“A compelling mystery … Tim O’Brien, one of his generation’s most deservedly acclaimed authors, has written a perceptive, engaging and troubling novel, full of powerful prose … challenging and provocative.”
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“Gracefully written and as gripping as a thriller … O’Brien makes the hunt a thrilling pursuit.”
WALL STREET JOURNAL
“Striking, telling, deeply unsettling. A novel about the moral effects of suppressing a true war story, about the unforgivable uses of history, about what happens when you try to pretend that history no longer exists.”
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Perhaps the best writer of fiction about Vietnam. O’Brien’s clean, incantatory prose always hovers on the edge of dream, and his speciality is that twilight zone of chimeras and fears and fantasies where nobody knows what’s true and what is not.”
TIME
“Hauntingly poignant … sheer brilliance. Only a master can navigate as compellingly as O’Brien.”
MIAMI HERALD
About the Author
Tim O’Brien was born in Minnesota and graduated from Macalester College in St Paul. He established himself as one of the leading writers of his generation in 1973 when he published ‘If I Die In A Combat Zone’, the compelling account of his own tour of duty in Vietnam and is widely regarded as the finest novelist the Vietnam War has produced.
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First Sentence
In September, after the primary, they rented an old yellow cottage in the timber at the edge of Lake of the Woods. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
In September, after the primary, they rented an old yellow cottage in the timber at the edge of Lake of the Woods. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Allthough it is years ago that I have read this fascinating novel about a politician, his wife, her disappearance and their lies of life, I still can smell the village, the lake and the wood. Particularely interesting in this novel is Tim O'Brian's construction of the novel and the three levels of footnotes he uses. They sometimes address the reader, explore and drive on the story or give detailed facts on a former lawsuit of his main character. Overall: A pleasant read, a thrilling novel and definitely a very good recommendation. One of my favourite books of the last years.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Michelle3791
Format:Paperback
A wonderfully atmospheric, menacing psychological thriller that plays with your expectations of both content and format. Gripping, thought-provoking, horrific without ever being gratuitous or sensationalist, and genuinely scary.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By reader 451
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
In the Lake of the Woods is four things at the same time: a thriller, a Vietnam war book, a love story, and a parable on storytelling. It is layered accordingly, with flashback chapters interspersed between shorts and quotes from the investigation and the main storyline. This makes for a formulaic but effective novel. Some will find the ending unsatisfactory, but this is where the parable on storytelling comes to fruition.
Most of Tim O'Brien's work seems to be related more or less closely to the Vietnam war, of which he is a veteran. Here it forms but a background to the failed political career of John Wade, the protagonist. The book begins as Wade retires to the seclusion of a northern lakeside cottage with his wife Kathy. Wade's secrets reach farther back than his two-year stint in the south Asian jungle. But as Kathy leaves without warning, the plot comes to revolve around her disappearance. O'Brien makes a convincingly intricate rendering of the relationship between the Wades, itself at the heart of Kathy's vanishing trick. The onion is slowly peeled and the story well paced. Both entertaining and interesting.
Most of Tim O'Brien's work seems to be related more or less closely to the Vietnam war, of which he is a veteran. Here it forms but a background to the failed political career of John Wade, the protagonist. The book begins as Wade retires to the seclusion of a northern lakeside cottage with his wife Kathy. Wade's secrets reach farther back than his two-year stint in the south Asian jungle. But as Kathy leaves without warning, the plot comes to revolve around her disappearance. O'Brien makes a convincingly intricate rendering of the relationship between the Wades, itself at the heart of Kathy's vanishing trick. The onion is slowly peeled and the story well paced. Both entertaining and interesting.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Oh dear!
I'm quite frankly amazed that this book is linked with other more interesting titles.There are not many books I've put down after a few pages with an audible groan, but this is one... Read more
Published on 10 May 2010 by Milton Fontaine
1.0 out of 5 stars
This novel should be thrown in the lake at the woods.
This novel is as bloated as it is boring. 300 pages of conjecture and hypothesis and mind-numbing detail that add little by way of atmosphere and even less by way of a point. Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2007 by John Mc Auley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent -- well beyond a "thriller"
O'Brien has the ability to put descriptions of emotions into a few exact words that most of us find diffcult to articulate at all. Read more
Published on 9 Feb 2004 by Barton Keyes
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