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67 pages 2 hours read

Liz Moore

The God of the Woods

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Important Quotes

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“A whole summer, thought Alice. A whole summer without Barbara, her rages, her storms, the hours she spent weeping aloud, disturbing the staff. All of them pretending politely not to hear. But they did, every one of them, and Alice did too. How pleasant it would be to have these months all to herself, while just down the hill her daughter was removed, but safe.”


(Part 1, Chapter 3, Page 19)

Alice immediately portrays her daughter as an antagonist, perpetuating the false narrative that Barbara is inherently a problem for everyone around her. By the end of the novel, however, Barbara will become a much more sympathetic character as Alice’s mental health crises and ongoing depression—fueled by the loss of her son—are revealed to play a role in her disdain for her daughter.

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“Any other camper who arrived in Barbara’s clothing would have been immediately shuttled to the bottom of the social heap, met with incredulity or ignored entirely. But Barbara Van Laar was too interesting to ignore, her personal history to intriguing and complex. Though no one said it aloud, the goal of every camper on the ground was to befriend her.”


(Part 1, Chapter 7, Page 36)

While Barbara is mistreated at home, the attitude of others at Camp Emerson proves to be a far better indicator of her personality. Her wealth and family connections initially bring her an unearned status, but she soon proves her worth as a genuine person when she chooses to befriend Tracy, the most reserved of the campers.

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“By the end of the hour, all of them understood the basics of navigation with a compass, or with the sun. 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.

‘Which word?” someone said.

‘Panic,’ said TJ. But no one raised a hand. She explained. 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, was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.”


(Part 1, Chapter 7, Page 40)

This passage reveals the significance of the novel’s title, for TJ emphasizes that mastery of the woods requires working with whatever the woods have to offer. Her teaching is invaluable to Barbara who, unlike the other campers, will be placed in a situation in which her true survival depends on such skills.

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“Generally, when Peter gave her any sort of advice, she took it. And, she discovered, he had thoughts about most facets of her appearance and personality. She should wear dresses that covered her shoulders, because her shoulders weren’t her best feature. She should wear the highest heels she could, due to their difference in height. She should not shake hands with me when she met them, but incline her head in that direction. He felt to her as much like a coach as a husband: always seeking to teach her, better her, bring her up to his level. She did not fault him for it; prior to Peter, she had little direction. She told herself to think of him as a mentor, in a way.”


(Part 2, Chapter 14, Page 93)

This passage reveals Alice’s struggles with Navigating the Injustices of Misogyny. Initially, Alice naively views Peter’s controlling nature as well-intended and helpful. However, his insistence on shaping and molding Alice to fit the norms of the elite class indicates that he cares more about his social standing than he does for Alice as a person. As time passes and Alice’s mental health declines, Peter will respond by keeping Alice out of sight, for fear that her presence will damage his reputation.

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“This moment—when all the games were over and everyone did what they wanted, was always Alice’s favorite of the day. It was the only time when she felt herself to be out from under the weight of Peter’s judgment. Sufficiently inebriated, she felt charitable and warm, and she could look around at the beautiful house they owned, and she could sneak down the quiet hallway and into the quiet room where her beautiful son was sleeping, and give him a kiss, and she could feel, really feel, how lucky she was to have this lot in life.”


(Part 2, Chapter 17, Page 110)

This passage reveals how Alice fails to find acceptance in her husband’s world, for she stands ill at ease in the role of hostess, which all women in her position are expected to perform with poise and flair. Alice finds her one anchor in her love for Bear, and when he disappears, Alice’s world unravels.

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“‘Listen,’ said Delphine. ‘The best part of being married to George Barlow for a decade was learning that it’s all right not to do everything that’s expected of you all the time. This is a notion that has been positively liberating for me. The way we were raised—the way our parents raised us, I mean—it trained us to think it’s our job to be absolutely correct in everything that we do. But it isn’t, Bunny. Do you see? We can have our own thoughts, our own inner lives. We can do as we please, if we only learn not to care so much about what people think.’”


(Part 2, Chapter 17, Page 112)

Using a strong, assertive tone, Delphine encourages Alice to disregard the pressures of the Van Laars’ world and resist The Corruptive Influence of Wealth and Class. Delphine has gained a vital measure of confidence in being herself and does not feel the need to apologize for defying social mandates. Alice, however, remains subject to Peter’s control and cannot so easily follow Delphine’s advice.

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“[Tracy] needs to go someplace. She thinks it will be a quick trip, just a lark—to see if she can rule out the place she believes Barbara might have gone. She makes a promise to herself: if she doesn’t find Barbara there, she’ll confess to the authorities everything she knows.

It’s not a decision she makes lightly. Because Barbara swore Tracy to secrecy. And the fact that she entrusted Tracy—Tracy!—with such an important secret makes her loath to break Barbara’s confidence so readily.”


(Part 3, Chapter 22, Page 142)

In a short amount of time, a closeness develops between the two girls, and this passage reveals The Dangers of Keeping Secrets as Barbara decides to confide in Tracy about her secret meeting spot with her boyfriend. Tracy finds herself torn between her allegiance to Barbara and her desire to ensure that Barbara is safe. Her recognition that Barbara may be in danger is a testament to her maturity.

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“On the upstairs landing [Carl] allowed himself to acknowledge why he’d used the past tense when speaking about Bear Van Laar. The truth was he’d been thinking of Scotty. The two boys were becoming closer in his mind.”


(Part 4, Chapter 35, Page 197)

Although the cause of Scotty’s death is never revealed, it is evident that Carl’s grief over his son’s absence still impacts him. This sadness allows him to empathize with the Van Laars and is further proof that he would not have harmed Bear and is undeserving of the suspicion that springs up around him.

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“‘Look at me,’ said Peter, with surprising gentleness. ‘Look at me. He’s gone.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Alice.

Peter paused. ‘We have to live our lives as if he is, Alice.’”


(Part 4, Chapter 37, Pages 209-210)

Peter’s words can be interpreted in more than one way. On the surface, it appears as though he is attempting to help Alice heal from her grief and sadness over Bear’s absence. However, because Peter believes that Alice’s depression makes her unpleasant in social situations, he is more concerned with appearances than with ameliorating Alice’s grief or acknowledging her true feelings. When the novel later reveals his culpability in Bear’s disappearance, his words appear intensely callous, for he is fully aware that Bear is dead but refuses to be honest about this fact.

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“[Alice] turned to the section on girls’ names, and then to the page on Barbara. From the Greek word ‘barbaros,’ said the book, meaning ‘foreign,’ ‘wild,’ or ‘strange.’

Alice looked up with a jolt. How terrible, she thought—how absolutely terrible to name a baby strange.

The book went on. ‘Barbarian’ derives from the same root, it said cheerfully.”


(Part 4, Chapter 37, Page 210)

This passage contrasts Alice’s inner emotional turmoil with the “cheerful” tone of the book she is reading to create a sense of irony around her lack of choice in the matter of her daughter’s naming. For Alice, the name “Barbara” holds a negative connotation and suggests that Barbara will not fit in with polite society and will defy social norms. This perception shapes Alice’s view of Barbara as the girl grows into her own person, ironically becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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“She couldn’t talk to Peter [about her grief over the loss of Bear]. She couldn’t talk to her own family. Everyone in her life encouraged her to move on, to move forward on the assumption that Bear would not ever be found. But this, for Alice, was an impossible task.

Until she had proof to the contrary, she allowed herself to imagine that her son might still exist in the world, someplace just out of sight, an actor in the wings who might at any moment walk onstage.

Alice would wonder, later, whether this notion was what prevented her from fully embracing Barbara. Some part of her feared that Bear—wherever he was, in this world or the next—would sense some division in her motherly heart, would vanish or perish because of it.”


(Part 4, Chapter 38, Page 213)

Alice must endure her grief over Bear’s absence alone. This grief is made worse by Alice’s lack of proof that Bear is truly dead, which is accepted as fact by everyone else in her life. The contrast between her closeness to Bear and her distance from Barbara is something that Alice is aware of but remains unmotivated to correct; she sees her continuing focus on her “missing” child as a way to honor him and does not acknowledge the harm she is causing her daughter.

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“[Louise] waits. The man watches her, measured. She does not like his expression: he believes her to be impressionable, credulous, a local who never left home. If he only knew, she thinks; if he only knew the restaurants she’s gone to with John Paul, the movies she’s seen. The books she’s read, on John Paul’s recommendation and on account of her own curiosity. I’m different from what you think, she wants to tell him. But Denny’s warning—don’t talk with a lawyer—remains at the front of her mind.”


(Part 5, Chapter 44, Page 240)

Louise is viewed as culpable in the disappearance of Barbara because she is labeled an unintelligent and possibly immoral person due to her economic class. Louise is fully aware of this injustice and is frustrated that she cannot disprove the biases of those around her. She knows that she has, at one point, earned the affections of an elite through her relationship with John Paul Jr.

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“[Alice’s] eyes swam toward Peter’s. He was too far from her. He was saying something to the McLellans, something about her: she could see him moving his mouth. The McLellan boy, John Paul Jr., had become a man. He’d take over the business, it was said, and she could see it: he already had the air that all these men had. The feeling he was owed something. Everything.”


(Part 5, Chapter 45, Page 246)

When Alice observes the camaraderie between her husband and the younger McLellan (John Paul Jr.), it becomes evident that John Paul Junior has taken Bear’s place. Not only does Peter III admire John Paul in a way that he never truly displayed with Bear, but he happily plans to relinquish his business to the younger McLellan when the time comes. This fact sickens Alice, who feels that John Paul Jr. has done nothing to earn either of these things, yet feels entitled to a life of privilege.

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“[Louise] had always tried her best to never give her brother false hope. To keep every promise she made, unlike the rest of the adults in his life.”


(Part 5, Chapter 48, Page 276)

As this passage indicates, Louise is fiercely protective of her brother; she cares for him unconditionally and places his needs above her own, even amid the family’s economic hardship. She also respects him and honors him by being truthful to him. The bond between Louise and her brother parallels the love between Alice and Bear to a certain extent.

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“By noon, the campers had set up too, with Barbara leading the charge. Not for the first time, Tracy marveled at how well she moved, how much she knew about the woods. She was the one to locate running water in the form of a nearby stream, to lead a small group to refill the canteens, with an iodine topper; she was the one to use ropes and tarps to make primitive tents, to clear a patch of ground, to frame a large circle with rocks. Then she sent the children off to find the driest wood they could find, and kindling too.

She was not much older than the rest of them—in fact, she was younger than Walter and Lowell—but to Tracy she seemed, that day, like a grown woman.”


(Part 6, Chapter 50, Page 295)

Barbara’s survival skills impress all of her fellow campers, striking them as surprising, given Barbara’s status as a Van Laar. However, it is not until the end of the novel that the author reveals that Barbara’s survival skills are essential to her plan of escaping the damaging influence of her parents.

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“It was wonderful, thought Tracy, having friends like these, who seemed to see the parts of yourself you worked hardest to hide, and bring them into the light and celebrate them with a sort of tender ribbing that uplifted more than it put down.”


(Part 6, Chapter 50, Page 301)

For the first time in her life, Tracy experiences true friendship, and her connection to Barbara emphasizes that both girls find greater meaning and support in their lifestyle at camp than they find in their own homes. Just as Tracy discovers that she can be valued for herself, Barbara finds someone to confide in, and the entire extended friend group takes comfort in their shared camaraderie.

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“Peter was thrilled. It was all that he hoped for the boy: self-reliance. And one of the best parts of all of it was the way it had brought Peter and Alice together. Now they could sit still together, watching their son like a show. They began to enjoy one another’s company in a way they hadn’t before. She was older, for one thing: Alice was twenty-six that year. A respectable age, at last.

At times, now, she had the thrilling idea that her husband was falling in love with her—for the first time, actually. She was sad for the younger Alice, the eighteen-year-old who hadn’t known anything about the world, but she was happy for herself in this moment. It was funny, she thought, how many relationships one could have with the same man, over the course of a lifetime together.”


(Part 6, Chapter 53, Pages 315-316)

For a brief period, Bear draws Alice and Peter together, but this newfound—and ultimately brief—connection only heightens Alice’s loneliness and emphasizes the emptiness of her marriage up until this point. Given the continued issues in her marriage, however, her moment of optimism is painted as a misguided notion, for her life as a Van Laar is doomed to continue in misery.

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“That day, though, Peter reached for her with a tenderness she had never felt before. He was gentle and forceful, all at once. She lay in bed with him afterward, astonished.

She cried, something she rarely let herself do in front of Peter.

‘What is it?’ he asked her, kindly.

She was crying, she said, because she loved him. And she did, in that moment: she loved him, and the life they had built together. But she was also crying because of all she’d been deprived of to that point.”


(Part 6, Chapter 53, Page 318)

For the first time, Peter is warm and affectionate toward Alice, showing true love and care. This change in his demeanor is a dramatic one and appears to be apropos of nothing. In truth, it is merely a way to ensure that Alice does not grow suspicious of Peter’s relationship with Delphine. Alice’s emotional response in this moment indicates just how spiritually broken she has become.

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“‘Do you know,’ Mrs. Stoddard continues, ‘how many hours of my life I’ve spent in the woods around Hunt Mountain? It’s practically all I’ve done. My children think I’m crazy. But I always think—if I could just find something—some of the boy’s clothing of —’ She goes quiet for a moment, weighing how honest she should be. ‘Or the boy himself,’ she says, finally. ‘Poor soul.’”


(Part 7, Chapter 75, Page 404)

Carl Stoddard’s wife has dedicated her life to finding evidence that will prove her husband’s innocence and clear his name. In her search for Bear, she parallels Alice, who keeps a constant mental vigil for Bear’s return. Having lost a son herself, Maryanne Stoddard can empathize with Alice while still being angered at the way the Van Laars have maligned her husband.

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“In her left hand, Louise is still holding the papers and photographs she took down from the walls of her room. She looks down at them. She listens to the voice of another man, making her another promise that won’t come true. How many times in her life has she said yes to a boy or a man just because it was the easiest thing to do? How many times has she let a man take what he wanted, instead of taking something for herself?”


(Part 7, Chapter 77, Page 412)

As the novel closes, Louise has grown and evolved considerably, and she now recognizes her innate value as a person and is determined to break free of all forms of male control. This newly obtained confidence implies that Louise will successfully pursue a new life in which she no longer relies upon the Van Laars for employment.

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“But it was not, [Victor] knew, Alice’s well-being that concerned them. It was theirs. And the bank’s.”


(Part 7, Chapter 85, Page 443)

While the two Peters suggest that hiding Bear’s body and inventing the lie about his disappearance will be better for Alice than telling her that Bear drowned due to her negligence, Victor believes that they have other motives. He recognizes that the death—an indirect result of Alice’s use disorder—would be regarded as a scandal and would damage the Van Laars’ elite status and drive away would-be business clients.

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“Before Victor lay two clear paths. One was to disagree with the Peters. He could tell them that he would not lie; he could say to them that an untruth as large as this one would have consequences they couldn’t foresee. His own father had taught him this well, when he was learning to guide: in the woods, each decision you make is irreversible, and sometimes catastrophic. A forgotten compass. A wrong turn. A fire lit in defiance of a drought. He could tell them he would not stand for it, and leave. But in the process, he would lose the trust of the overseer of his inheritance. Lose the camp. His livelihood.”


(Part 7, Chapter 85, Page 443)

Victor recognizes the seriousness of the decision he is faced with (regarding whether to be complicit in the coverup of Bear’s death). He must weigh his moral standards against his financial security. Neither option, however, will be without repercussions, and his anguished deliberations reveal that he is deeply affected by the Van Laars’ unapologetic use of The Corruptive Influence of Wealth and Class.

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“Now, as Vic made his request of [TJ]—to stay silent, forever, about what she had seen; to join him and the Peters in their great untruth—she looked back at him, her large eyes narrowed, her eyebrows furrowed. Her doubt made him doubtful, too.

But a girl of her age couldn’t understand her own future the way he did. She couldn’t understand how limited her opportunities would be, if they defied the Peters, told the truth.

Their future rested upon this lie.

‘Trust me,’ said Victor.

Reluctantly, his daughter nodded.”


(Part 7, Chapter 87, Page 448)

Victor asks TJ to participate in the lie of Bear’s death, convincing her that doing so is in their own best interests, as the Van Laars can withhold their livelihood if they do not comply. TJ, like Victor, knows that this decision is morally compromising, but she trusts her father’s decision, and this conspiracy of silence emphasizes The Dangers of Keeping Secrets.

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“Where’s Bear?

This was the question [Alice] would ask for the rest of her life, seeking her son without end. In keeping the truth from her, Victor thought—the truth that they told him she could not abide, that they insisted would send her to an early grave—the Peters were simply taking away the grief of loss and replacing it with the grief of uncertainty.

This, he realized, was the very thing from which he was attempting to protect his own daughter. He believed, on most levels, that he had little to give her, without the Van Laars. And so he bent to their collective will, telling himself that at least, in doing so, he was giving his strange and wonderful daughter the certainty of meaningful work.”


(Part 7, Chapter 88, Page 450)

Victor recognizes that although he does not condone the Peters’ treatment of Alice, he himself is not above engaging in unethical behavior, for by agreeing to aid the cover-up of Bear’s death, he acts in the interest of his own livelihood and circumvents justice. He is certain, however, that this dishonesty is justified because his end goal is to improve his daughter’s life.

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“It would be career-making for Judy. Finding Barbara Van Laar—finding her alive, no less—would mean a promotion. Maybe two. It would set her on a path for success. And it would resolve the question that’s hovered over her head since she began work as an investigator, the one that every male investigator she’s encountered has thought upon seeing her. Are women cut out for this work?”


(Part 7, Chapter 94, Page 468)

Judy’s decision to maintain the secret of Barbara’s whereabouts contrasts with the other secrets in the novel because this particular secret has a selfless and empathic origin. Judy places Barbara’s wishes above her own pursuit of success when she agrees to allow Barbara to continue to live in hiding. Although she knows that revealing Barbara’s location is an opportunity to prove herself as an investigator, she values Barbara’s freedom more highly than her ambitions.

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