The Hanging Woods (review)

In what initially seems like one of those small-town boyhood friendships, Walter is virtually inseparable from his pals Jimmy and Mothball; the trio roams through the Alabama woods and engages in some of the traditional mischief of young teenage boys, such as spinning stories about "the Troll," a veteran of the recently concluded Vietnam War, who's camping by the river. As events progress, however, the darker notes in Walter's narration, foreshadowed by his initial mention of finding a family secret, become more prominent, and the erstwhile friends dip increasingly into abusive bullying of one another. Dark then turns to disastrous in a sequence of intertwined lethal events that recalls Greek tragedy even as it suggests a cursed reconfiguration of To Kill a Mockingbird. Sanders handles Walter's narration deftly, seeding it with clues to the upcoming wreck but masterfully camouflaging the story as an atmospheric period buddy tale, complete with the lacerating unchallenged racism of the place and time, until the corruption becomes inescapably overt. Readers accustomed to literary morality setting like concrete from the get-go will find this bracingly unsettling as well as enticingly mysterious, and it is sure to provoke discussion if used in the classroom as well as absorption as an independent read.