#241 | What Makes 'The God of the Woods' a Must-Read Literary Mystery?
Quick SUMMARY:
Douglas Vigliotti explores Liz Moore's crime fiction novel, "The God of the Woods." Vigliotti provides an overview of the book's plot, which centers on the mysterious disappearance of a young girl at a summer camp and her little brother, who disappeared years earlier. He delves into the novel’s themes of trauma, loss, entitlement, wealth, power, and family secrets, praising Moore's craftsmanship and highlighting her clear prose and effective use of dual timelines and point of view. Listen and weigh in!
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TOPICS COVERED IN the EPISODE:
Introduction to the Episode (00:09) - Douglas introduces the podcast and shares details about the crime fiction book "The God of the Woods."
Promotion of Personal Book (01:18) - He discusses his own book, "Aristotle for Novelists," aimed at writers and storytellers.
Author Background (02:24) - Douglas provides insights into Liz Moore's writing career and her transition from literary to crime fiction.
Plot Overview of "The God of the Woods" (03:34) - He summarizes the book's plot about a missing girl and its dual timeline structure.
Themes of the Book (04:45) - Douglas discusses the themes of trauma, family secrets, and the value of nature in the narrative.
Craftsmanship in Writing (05:56) - He highlights Liz Moore's writing style, emphasizing clarity and technical skill.
Technical Aspects of the Novel (07:13) - Douglas admires the book's structure, including multiple points of view and short scenes.
Protagonist and Central Thread (09:36) - He identifies Barbara van La as the central protagonist and discusses her significance in the story.
Meaning of the Title (10:44) - Douglas reflects on how the title "The God of the Woods" gains deeper meaning throughout the book.
Conclusion and Call to Action (11:59) - He wraps up the episode, encouraging listeners to subscribe and share their thoughts.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have another piece of fiction to share with you. It is crime fiction, a thriller, a mystery. All of those genres sort of blend together, or at least for me, it is around 480-500 pages, something of that nature. It reads a lot shorter than that, though I was quite surprised when I read what it was billed at. I did read this on my Kindle. It came out in 2024. It's titled “The God of the Woods” by Liz Moore, and I will share more about the author, the book, and of course, some of my larger takeaways. But first, I just wanted to remind you about my new book that is out, “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. So it's indeed pointed at novelists or aspiring novelists. I've heard from writers of all experience levels about this book, saying that they've gotten something out of it. So I don't want to narrow down the readership too much because I do think that there is a lot in there.
01:18 - And even if you're not a writer and you're just trying to tell a story in your life, I think you might be able to get something out of this. So if you're interested in that, you could find out more information at AristotleforNovelists.com. All right. So now let me pivot back into the reason why you are listening to this episode, “The God of the Woods” by Liz Moore. So the author, she's written five novels. Her debut was in 2007. It was called “The Words of Every Song”. And then she released two other literary novels, and although they were well received, it wasn't until her fourth novel when she made the pivot into crime fiction with “Long Bright River”, which garnered her a lot of attention, so much so that the book was actually adapted into a TV show, which coincidentally just got released last month, I believe. I don't know on what streaming platform. Maybe Peacock? I'm not sure. You'd have to double-check that. Just as a side note, I always think it's interesting when authors start in literary and then pivot to Asia as their career goes on.
02:24 - This is something that one of my favorite writers of all time, Richard Price, who I've covered on this podcast a lot, did with his career also, and the reason why he said he did that was to help create a career for himself. So it's really hard to write literary fiction and make a career writing your fiction. And so, he placed the things that he wanted to write about inside of a genre. I'd be curious to know if that was similar for Liz Moore or whether it was just what she wanted to write and not knowing her at all, or hearing her opinion on that in any shape or form. It might be the case because she does have another career as well. She's also an English professor at Temple in Philly and the director of their creative writing program there, and for a few reasons that will probably become apparent. This does not surprise me at all. So I've never read any of her other work other than the book that I am sharing with you today, which was a really popular book from last year, so I wanted to read it, check out what all the hype was about, and I have to admit that I was super, super impressed with the level of craftsmanship in the book, but that is something that I will get to in just a moment.
03:34 - Before I get ahead of myself. I should talk a little bit about the story itself. So in short, it's about a young girl named Barbara Van Laar who goes missing while attending a summer camp in the Adirondacks. So in upstate New York. Barbara is the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the camp. The land, the big estate next to it has all these powerful, wealthy friends and all of this stuff. So the kicker is that she is not the first Van La child to go missing. And that first child was never found. So the book dances back and forth between the early 60s and 1975, which would be considered present day in this book. I will talk more about that in a moment, but basically, the story is a dual timeline mystery as to what happened to both of the kids. So thematically, the book takes on so many things: trauma, loss, family secrets, wealth, class divide, power, entitlement, and the value of nature. I think that that's a really big one that you have to dig a little bit for, to really grasp the true value in the metaphor.
04:45 - But make no mistake about this book; it is a plot-driven narrative, and so the plot really does take precedence over all of the themes that I had just mentioned. Admittedly, I will say I didn't love the characters, and I almost put this book down around page 150, but I was just so impressed by the level of craftsmanship in this book that I kept reading. And of course, I was happy I did because why else would I be sharing it with you today? Okay, so now let me pivot back to, I guess, what would be my first big takeaway. And it builds off of something that you've heard me say a couple of times already. And that is about the craftsmanship, which to me is superb and top-notch, so to speak. So, from a technical standpoint, it's just written incredibly well. So, there's a level of clarity that makes the prose extremely easy to read. All of the sentences are lean and tight. She does not force uncommon word choices. This is something that I see all the time when I'm reading, and obviously, it's done with the best of intentions because the author is just trying to vary the way that they say something.
05:56 - But to me, it's very easy to spot, and like anything that feels forced, it doesn't feel good. And by no means am I saying that uncommon word choices and pairings of words that are ambiguous and all of the qualities that can work on the page aren't good. It's just kind of like Aristotle says, if you're going to be inconsistent, then be consistently inconsistent. And what I mean by that is there's more. She sets the tone early on how the book is going to pace, and it just maintains it the whole way through. You have a really great sense that she knows exactly where she wants to take you, and I think that comes through in her direct, clear, unpretentious sentences. It just shows, in a subtle way, how confident the writer is in saying, take it or leave it. And I just love that as a quality. Even little details like making sure that when she is writing in 1975, everything comes to present tense, not past tense. There are these little technical shifts that are really impressive to me, and you might think to yourself, they're in all novels, but they're not.
07:13 - I promise you, if you look for them, you will see some writers are a lot more technically savvy than other writers are. And not to say that one is wrong and the other is right. It's just like anything. If you watch a great guitarist play the guitar, some cleanly pick out every single note, and some don't. Doesn't mean it's not good, it just means some pick out every note. I will also say that it is very hard to put together a book that has multiple points of view and 200 plus scenes, so they are very short, which requires a great deal of patience and bandwidth, I should say. It kind of leverages the David Mamet theory of always get into a scene late and get out of it early. Again, reading a lot, you will realize how rare this is in fiction, and I know because I look for it specifically. Why else? For self-interest. At the time, I was writing a dual timeline 150 scene novel that just kind of cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
08:26 - I almost went crazy trying to put it together, but I was inspired by the pace of the way that these types of novels read, even though they are rare. It is something that to me was super admirable and attractive. And it's funny. I already mentioned his name once in this episode, Richard Price, but his novel “Lush Life” was the original inspiration for that, for me anyway. And so when I read this novel years later, recently, I was in the perfect headspace to appreciate the challenge of putting a work like this together, and the fact that she did it so cleanly was just so impressive. And without having spoken to her and not knowing her at all, I can probably imagine she had to work like hell to make it that clean. And that alone to me was something worthy of remark. The last note on the craft piece is just that I may have already alluded to this. The scenes are super short, and for the most part, I think that this is a modern trend with a lot of really successful books because it makes it super easy to read.
09:36 - And it's probably why when I saw that this book was close to 500 pages, I couldn't believe it because it reads significantly shorter. So I'll be quick with my final two takeaways because I sort of harped on that first one quite a bit. But the second thing is, as far as the story is concerned, I think it's a great example of despite having many characters or lots of points of view to handle, there's still a central protagonist, even if it's hard for the reader to actually see. In that, the central protagonist is Barbara Van Laar, and her journey is the central thread that pulls this story together, both on a plot level and also on a thematic level, which gains a lot more significance as the novel goes on. And I'm not going to spoil that arc because it is a new book, and I don't want to ruin it for anybody who wants to read it. But I will say that part of my third final Takeaway is the title of the book, “The God of the Woods”. This is something that I just mentioned.
10:44 - It is another thing that becomes more pronounced and understood as the book goes on, and I love how it changes meaning as the book goes on. It's almost like she knew the title before she wrote the story, and then wrote the story to the title. I don't know if that's the case. I don't know if she wrote the story and then put the title later, but it has the feeling as if it was always there because it's metaphoric, and it changes quite a bit as the story goes on to that. I will end this by sharing a quote that you should return to if you do read this novel because it's emblematic to the larger picture, and it comes at the beginning when the camp counselor leader TJ is talking to everyone. The campers. And Liz Moore writes: “If both of those techniques failed, concluded TJ, the most important thing was not to panic for a bonus. She asked them, ‘Who knew the origins of the word panic?’ Which word? Someone said? ‘Panic’, said TJ. But no one raised a hand, she explained.
11:59 - It came from the Greek god: Pan, the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings and their minds to panic, said TJ. To panic was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.” All right, so that's all I've got. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. If you did, I want to remind you to please click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on or take two seconds to rate the podcast. Either one of those will go a long way in helping to inspire more men to read. Also, if you want to tell me what you thought about this episode or the podcast more broadly, there are two ways you could reach out to me, either on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti. It's the only social media that I have or via my website, DouglasVigliotti.com. As I mentioned at the top of this episode, I do have a new book out. It is titled “Aristotle for Novelists,” and if you want to find out more information about that, you could do so by visiting the website AristotleforNovelists.com. Last but not least, I want to thank you so much for listening and remind you that if you want more information on this podcast, which includes signing up for the monthly newsletter, then all you have to do is visit the website BooksforMen.org.
