In the Forest: A Novel - Couverture souple

" Short, stark and eloquent. . .[Her] sentient, sonorous prose makes both O'Kane's inner world and his environment nearly palpable." Publishers Weekly

"A brilliant illumination of human nature." --Brad Hooper Booklist, ALA, Starred Review

"IN THE FOREST is a rather extraordinary transformation of cold fact into lyric fiction." --Melanie Rehak Vogue

"O'Brien is a Romantic, intuitive and poetic, who seldom stoops to prosaic questions. . .IN THE FOREST succeeds remarkably." --Brooke Allen Atlantic Monthly

"At once rich and chilling: one of O'Brien's darkest, most accomplished works in years." Kirkus Reviews

"IN THE FOREST is a portrait of desolation and rage, brilliantly told, truly shocking." --Harold Pinter

"With masterstrokes of psychological insight and narrative bravado, O'Brien has created monstrous character. . ." --Lisa Shea Elle

"Edna O'Brien is an absolutely gorgeous writer. . ." --Carolyn See The Washington Post

"A bleak, despairing, almost unbearably powerful book. . ." --Margaria Fichtner The Miami Herald

"It's pure Edna O'Brien, who can take the verdant promises of the West of Ireland and render them sensual, paralyzing, and dangerous, sometimes all at once." --Gail Caldwell Boston Globe

". . .[B]reathtakingly told in O'Brien's typically graceful, emotionally gripping style." --Charlotte Innes The Los Angeles Times

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"Her best book, and a modern masterpiece. . ." --Eoghan Harris, The Independent (Dublin)

In the Forest returns to the countryside of western Ireland, the vivid backdrop of Edna O'Brien's best-selling Wild Decembers. Here O'Brien unravels a classic confrontation of evil and innocence centering on the young, troubled Michael O'Kane, christened by his neighbors "the Kindershrek," someone of whom small children are afraid. O'Kane loses his mother as a boy and by age ten is incarcerated in a juvenile detention center, an experience that leaves him scarred from abuse and worse, with the killing instinct buried within. A story based on actual events, In the Forest proceeds in a rush of hair-raising episodes and asks what will become of O'Kane's unwitting victims -- a radiant young woman, her little son, and a devout and trusting priest.
Riveting, frightening, and brilliantly told, this intimate portrayal of both perpetrator and victims reminds us that anything can happen "outside the boundary of mother and child."