39 pages • 1 hour read
Tim O'BrienIn the Lake of the Woods
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: How Unhappy They Were
In September, 1986, John Wade and his wife, Kathy, retreat to a lakeside cabin after John suffers a terrible loss in a primary election for the U.S. Senate. There they hope to repair their relationship and plan their future. John, age 41, is devastated by his defeat, while his wife, Kathy, age 38, tries to focus on the future that they still have together. They try to cheer themselves up by imagining all sorts of impossibly wonderful futures, including trips to Verona, Italy, the purchase and decoration of a big Victorian house, and the naming of their unborn children.
Neither of them tells the other what they are really thinking: John certainly attempts to hide the extreme rage and sense of impotence he feels. Whatever reservations Kathy may have about her husband she keeps to herself.
Chapter 2 Summary: Evidence
Each evidence chapter consists of quotations from history books and psychology books, and war commentary, including court martial testimony and interviews. The interviews all take place in the future, as the third person narrator investigates John and Kathy’s lives in an attempt to explain what happened to them.
This chapter contains the missing person’s report for Kathy Wade, who was reported missing from Lake of the Woods on September 20, 1986. Interviews quoted here—including John’s mother, Eleanor Wade, Kathy’s sister, Patricia (Pat) Hood, and Richard Thinbill, who served with John in the army—are dated from 1989 to 1993, long after the original events took place. Various theories and opinions about what happened to Kathy confuse the narrator’s search for the truth. Some people believe that John killed Kathy, while others believe that she wandered off in the boat and got lost, either accidentally or on purpose.
Chapter 3 Summary: The Nature of Loss
John’s father dies when he is 14 years old. Unable to accept the loss, John experiences a tremendous rage and is overcome by an urge to kill. In order to cope with his tumultuous emotions, John pretends that his father is still alive, and he talks to him and imagines his father’s replies. Though part of him knows that this is not real, he gains genuine comfort from conjuring up a place, if only in his head, where his father is still alive.
Chapter 4 Summary: What He Remembered
John remembers the seventh day in the cabin, the day before he woke up to find that Kathy was gone. Both follow the careful routines that offer them some comfort and sense of normalcy; they make a grocery list. They do not talk about what they are really feeling.
They drive into town to buy groceries and have a sandwich at the local grocery store. They are not getting along; the unspoken things between them cause tension.
When they return home, they eat dinner and play backgammon. John tries to apologize for his silent, angry behavior, and Kathy tells him that they cannot keep dwelling on the past anymore. John repeats that he has that “electricity in his blood” (19) several times. They go to bed.
Chapter 5 Summary: Hypothesis
The narrator interjects a theory here, imagining that Kathy has run away from John’s secretive, brooding nature, and their marriage, which is full of “tricks and trapdoors” (23) into the waiting car of her lover, who is an honest and open man.
Chapter 6 Summary: Evidence
This chapter reveals that John Wade’s nickname in the war was Sorcerer, and that as a child he was obsessed with magic. He became an expert in magic tricks.
This chapter also contains quotations about the nature of the psychological trauma experienced by people exposed to war.
A long footnote at the end of this chapter explains that even after four years of research into John and Kathy Wade’s lives, the narrator has no definitive answers to offer. The reader will not get a solution to the mystery of Kathy’s disappearance.
Chapter 1-6 Analysis
The footnote at the end of chapter 6 alerts the reader to the fact that this mystery story will not have a traditional ending. In the typical mystery story, the novel begins with a crime perpetrated by a villain, and ends when the mystery is solved, the villain unmasked, and the crime explained. Here, the narrator tells the reader that this book does not offer that type of emotional catharsis or tidy resolution.
In addition, by the time the reader reaches chapter 6, other novelistic traditions have been subverted, particularly the notion that the protagonist of a novel is its hero.
For example, the main character, John Wade may have killed his wife, Kathy. Nothing in the first chapters portrays him as a loveable or easy-going man. He is difficult, terse, secretive, and sarcastic with his wife. Though she clearly attempts to cheer him up and support him, she loses patience with his complete self-absorption. He acts as if the loss of the election only affects him; the reader sees a selfish man pretending to plan a future with his wife. However, he is completely obsessed with the election, unable to see or think about anything else.
Kathy, on the other hand, is portrayed as a supportive spouse; however, she too is troubled. Happy people do not take Valium, an anti-anxiety medication, or Restoril, another anti-anxiety medication used to help people sleep. Though they talk about having children during their time in the cabin, the reader learns that Kathy had an abortion four years previously. Unresolved issues swirl around Kathy, as well as John.
John’s alter-ego, the magician known as Sorcerer, shapes the reader’s interpretation of him from the beginning of the novel. Can he be trusted? Who is he really? These questions undermine the reliability of John’s character as protagonist.
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