Here is an excellent review from
The Labradorian in Canada, written by a guy named Darrell Squires. My thanks and gratitude go out to him. He really seemed to get what I was trying to do with The Hanging Woods. He also seems to agree with me that The Hanging Woods is as much an adult novel as it is a young adult novel. I tried to post the link but it wouldn't work, so here it is.
Secrets and Tension Haunt ‘The Hanging Woods’
The
novel “The Hanging Woods,” by Scott Loring Sanders shows how mature young adult fiction has become. It’s gotten to the point where the separation between teen fiction and adult fiction is all but indiscernible.
“The Hanging Woods” reflects the experiences of entering adulthood, and what it is to occupy the netherworld where you’re no longer a child and adults are not yet peers. And as “The Hanging Woods” shows, this netherworld can be a scary and harrowing place.
At the opening of this disturbing novel, 15-year-old Walter bludgeons a fox to death and feels, for the first time, how delicate life is.
The first scene’s visceral brutality sets the tone of this suspenseful story, set in a small, economically depressed town in 1975 Alabama. Walter and his best friends, Mothball and Jimmy, share an antagonistic camaraderie spiked with aggression that echoes racial tensions in their community and in their homes.
While reading his mother’s diary, Walter discovers a terrible secret, unleashing a chain of shocking events that ends in murder.
Writing in Walter’s realistic, believable voice, Sanders presents motives that lead the characters to act. Before long, though, we start to question Walter’s narration. Can we trust him? Are things necessarily happening the way he says they are?
Actions matter a great deal in the story – and whether these kids act “rightly” or “wrongly,” remains a matter of moral ambiguity. Acting and reacting in the way they do, they are simply human. This in itself will unsettle readers.
Themes of crime, punishment, and the mysterious, and what results naturally from guilt, rage, sorrow, cruelty, secrets — and all things that go unsaid — drive this gripping story.
And like another fabulous novel for young adults, Chris Lynch’s “Inexcusable” from 2006, it invites readers to examine the darkest territory of human behavior.
“The Hanging Woods,” by Scott Loring Sanders stands out as one of the best novels I’ve read in recent months, and its power resonates long after you’ve turned the last page.
For Newfoundland and Labrador public libraries, I’m Darrell Squires.
