In Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, Barbara Van Laar, a thirteen-year old at summer camp in the lush Adirondacks, has gone missing. The most important rule at this remote camp is “When lost sit down and yell.” Barbara hasn’t done that, which is strange because her wealthy family owns the camp. She’s aware of the rule. Her family also owns the mansion overlooking the beautiful mountain lake next to the campgrounds. Barbara knows the area. She’s not lost.
This is also strange. Barbara’s brother, nicknamed Bear, went missing in the same area fourteen years earlier in the summer of 1961. He was only eight years old, and he was never found. Stranger still, Jacob Sluiter, whose ancestors previously owned the ancient woods surrounding the mansion and campgrounds, escaped from prison a few weeks before Barbara disappeared. He’s a notorious killer, convicted of murdering eleven people between 1960 and 1964. He was blamed for Bear’s disappearance. That’s a coincidence, I’m sure, because there are rumors that Barbara has a much older secret boyfriend, and she may have run off with him.
All of this means there’s some urgency to the search for her, and the state troopers are brought in to lead it. Judyta is a young woman in her mid-twenties, and she has just been promoted to investigator. She doesn’t have much experience looking for missing children, but she does know how to work within patriarchal systems. Since this is 1975, those skills serve her well, as the patriarchy is everywhere.
There’s much to like about this book. Moore does a nice job jumping between the timelines relating to each child’s disappearance. She’s devised an interesting plot with two engrossing mysteries. The exploration of female empowerment working within a suffocating patriarchy is effective and authentic. Moore isn’t afraid of irony or poking fun at patriarchal and capitalist mythology. The Van Laar’s Adirondack mansion is named Self-Reliance, but it was built by the local townsfolk, and time and again the Van Laars must rely on the locals for help.
While the book is an enjoyable read, it falls short of being great. Judyta is a distant, less compelling, cousin of The Silence of the Lambs‘ Clarice Starling. At times the prose is silly and clunky. “When one’s parents and grandparents have already quested and conquered, what is there for subsequent generations to do?” But the real problem is the ending. The mysteries are solved, but only one resolution is satisfactory. The other one is ludicrous. Throughout the story, Moore correctly shows how self-reliance is a hypocritical myth perpetuated by the patriarchy. However, she then takes self-reliance to absurd lengths to mythologize female empowerment.
Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor
Pungent Sound Journal of Pulp Poetry 