When Barbara Van Laar is discovered missing from her summer camp bunk one morning in August 1975, it triggers a panicked, terrified search. Losing a camper is a horrific tragedy under any circumstances, but Barbara isn't just any camper: she's the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the camp—as well as the opulent nearby estate, and most of the land in sight. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared in this region. Barbara's older brother also went missing 16 years earlier, never to be found. How could this have happened yet again?
Intricate ... Transports readers so deeply into its richly peopled, ominous world that, for hours, everything else falls away ... Nuanced ... Chillingly astute about the invisible boundaries demarcating social class.
I wish Moore had painted the reprehensible Van Laars with more nuance; villains are better when we can see ourselves in them, after all. A few red herrings fall away without resolution, and there are some less-than-convincing details ... These are small complaints. Moore’s portrayal of Alice’s maternal devastation is acutely, painfully real. And her fictional summer camp felt as vivid to me as my own.
Extraordinary ... I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air ... Moore’s previous book...was a superb social novel about the opioid crisis in Philadelphia; The God of the Woods is something weirder and stranger and unforgettable.
