Tana French's 'In the Woods' left me shaken.
At the bottom of this post, below the spoiler warning, I discuss the ending -- a frustrating, confounding, genius ending that I can't stop thinking about.
The novel is a gripping psychological study that I plowed through in just a few days. It opens with the main character, Rob Ryan, recalling a childhood horror -- when he and his two friends went into the woods in 1984 and only he came out. He can't remember a single thing about what happened to his friends, who haven't been seen since.
Two decades later, Rob is a homicide detective assigned to investigate the murder of a young girl from his hometown. The case has eerie similarities to the 1984 disappearances, raising the obvious question: Are the cases connected?
What kept me flipping the pages was the delicious tension between Rob and his partner, Cassie. They are funny, smart, and likable -- maybe too likable.
The best paragraph (p. 4):
It's impossible to evaluate this novel without discussing the ending, which has been churning in my brain for days.
At first, I was outraged -- French appeared to have broken a cardinal rule of mystery-writing by leaving a key thread unsolved.
But after mulling it over -- and reading some online discussion boards -- I came around to the opinion that the 1984 disappearances are, in fact, solved. Our narrator, Rob, murdered his friends. I don't come to this conclusion lightly; I liked Rob and was rooting for him to emerge as the story's hero.
The evidence for this theory can be found in numerous posts across the internet. I'll add just two points that are extremely convincing to me:
1) Cassie cuts Rob from her life. Yes, Rob is a huge jerk to her. But I don't believe the events, as described by Rob, warrant her response of completely ghosting her best friend. Instead, I believe her reaction is the result of her realizing that Rob is a sociopath. She has repeated her previous error of falling for a man with no conscience -- and this realization pushes her to seek a fresh start. It's worth noting that the other women in Rob's life, Sophie and his landlord, also seem to see something sinister inside Rob that we do not -- since we're only privy to Rob's side of the story.
2) I keep coming back to the passage below where Rob notes that we, as readers, failed to pick up on Rosalind's evil nature. I can't help but wonder if Rob is playing the same trick with himself, causing us to sympathize with him despite the warning signs that he is concealing his true nature. Here's the passage in question (p. 409):
At the bottom of this post, below the spoiler warning, I discuss the ending -- a frustrating, confounding, genius ending that I can't stop thinking about.
The novel is a gripping psychological study that I plowed through in just a few days. It opens with the main character, Rob Ryan, recalling a childhood horror -- when he and his two friends went into the woods in 1984 and only he came out. He can't remember a single thing about what happened to his friends, who haven't been seen since.
Two decades later, Rob is a homicide detective assigned to investigate the murder of a young girl from his hometown. The case has eerie similarities to the 1984 disappearances, raising the obvious question: Are the cases connected?
What kept me flipping the pages was the delicious tension between Rob and his partner, Cassie. They are funny, smart, and likable -- maybe too likable.
The best paragraph (p. 4):
This is my job, and you don't go into it -- or, if you do, you don't last -- without some natural affinity for its priorities and demands. What I am telling you, before I begin my story, it this -- two things: I crave truth. And I lie.SPOILER ALERT!!!
It's impossible to evaluate this novel without discussing the ending, which has been churning in my brain for days.
At first, I was outraged -- French appeared to have broken a cardinal rule of mystery-writing by leaving a key thread unsolved.
But after mulling it over -- and reading some online discussion boards -- I came around to the opinion that the 1984 disappearances are, in fact, solved. Our narrator, Rob, murdered his friends. I don't come to this conclusion lightly; I liked Rob and was rooting for him to emerge as the story's hero.
The evidence for this theory can be found in numerous posts across the internet. I'll add just two points that are extremely convincing to me:
1) Cassie cuts Rob from her life. Yes, Rob is a huge jerk to her. But I don't believe the events, as described by Rob, warrant her response of completely ghosting her best friend. Instead, I believe her reaction is the result of her realizing that Rob is a sociopath. She has repeated her previous error of falling for a man with no conscience -- and this realization pushes her to seek a fresh start. It's worth noting that the other women in Rob's life, Sophie and his landlord, also seem to see something sinister inside Rob that we do not -- since we're only privy to Rob's side of the story.
2) I keep coming back to the passage below where Rob notes that we, as readers, failed to pick up on Rosalind's evil nature. I can't help but wonder if Rob is playing the same trick with himself, causing us to sympathize with him despite the warning signs that he is concealing his true nature. Here's the passage in question (p. 409):
I am intensely aware, by the way, that this story does not show me in a particularly flattering light. I am aware that, within an impressively short time of meeting me, Rosalind had me coming to heel like a well-trained dog: running up and down stairs to bring her coffee, nodding along while she bitched about my partner, imagining like some starstruck teenager that she was a kindred soul. But before you decide to despise me too thoroughly, consider this: she fooled you, too. You had as good a chance as I did. I told you everything I saw, as I saw it at the time. And if that was in itself deceptive, remember, I told you that, too: I warned you, right from the beginning, that I lie.
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