Into the Forest (4 Cassettes)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Hegland's powerfully imagined first novel will make readers thankful for telephones and CD players while it underscores the vulnerability of lives dependent on technology. The tale is set in the near future: electricity has failed, mail delivery has stopped and looting and violence have destroyed civil order. In Northern California, 32 miles from the closest town, two orphaned teenage sisters ration a dwindling supply of tea bags and infested cornmeal. They remember their mother's warnings about the nearby forest, but as the crisis deepens, bears and wild pigs start to seem less dangerous than humans. From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest voice of the 17-year-old narrator pull the reader in, and the fight for survival adds an urgent edge to her coming-of-age story. Flashbacks smartly create a portrait of the lost family: an iconoclastic father, artistic mother and two independent daughters. The plot draws readers along at the same time that the details and vivid writing encourage rereading. Eating a hot dog starts with "the pillowy give of the bun," and the winter rains are "great silver needles stitching the dull sky to the sodden earth." If sometimes the lyricism goes a little too far, this is still a truly admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell's 1984 and Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker. (July)

Library Journal

This story of grit pits two sisters against the natural elements and dwindling supplies in the aftermath of a holocaust, whose origin is never fully explained. Nell, the narrator; her sister, Eva; and their parents live in seclusion near Redwood, California. Eva concentrates on ballet dancing, Nell on tracking through the forest, working on projects with her dad, and contemplating the essay she will write to apply to Harvard. Before long numerous signs of disintegration start to appear. Eva and Nell's mother dies of cancer, leaving the rest of the family to endure without her unflinching good humor and steadfastness. First novelist Hegland writes simply and directly, which allows her to convey strong emotions. She has the ability to make the giant redwood trees seem palpable, to allow readers to breathe in the smell of the rich humus on the floor of the forest. Highly recommended for public libraries.Lisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., Ohio

Kirkus Reviews

Brisk, feminist, contemplative first novel about the end of contemporary civilization and the survival of two sisters. Hegland is vague about civilization's downfall. She places a wife, a husband, and their two daughters, Eva and Nell, on 50 acres of second-growth redwood forest in northern California—the idea seeming to be that since the location is remote to begin with, news of the outside world would filter in slowly. There's a war somewhere, and ever more virulent strains of viruses rage through the population; then, suddenly, there's no more food available in stores, no more gasoline, no more television. The mother dies; the father pushes his dreamy daughters to learn such humble skills as gardening and canning. In the best scene, the father's chain saw kicks back and cuts him, and his daughters are helpless, unable to do more than watch as he bleeds to death. They bury him where he lies. Slowly, because the alternative is starvation, Nell learns the wisdom of the forest: killing a wild sow with a rifle she barely knows how to fire, using herbs for medicines and tea, gathering acorns to pound into flour. A boy comes to take Nell away, but she cannot leave Eva; though sisters by birth, Hegland turns the girls into lovers—and ideologically pure lovers, at that. Mystically, they both produce milk to nurse Eva's son, the product of a rape by a passing thug. Fearful of more such violence, the sisters burn down their father's house and take up housekeeping in a mammoth redwood stump. They've learned nature's lessons and, purified, are prepared for humankind's great destiny: to live in the woods like animals. A little apocalypse goes a long way. Beautifully written,however, and Hegland's knowledge of organic gardening, fruit drying, etc., is impeccably authentic.