shape these relationships. Her novels, stories, and essays reveal the complexities of home, work, and the Midwestern landscape. Thomas is a Teaching Professor in the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College. Her first book, States of Motion, was a finalist for a Foreword Reviews Indie Award.
Thomas's new novel is The Meaning of Fear.
At Electric Lit she tagged "nine novels [that] tell the stories of women who find themselves battling their own wilds." One title on the list:
The God of the Woods by Liz MooreRead about another novel on the list.
The God of the Woods opens with the epigraph, “How quickly . . . peril could be followed by beauty in the wilderness . . . ” It’s 1975 and teen BarbaraVan Laar has disappeared from a summer camp her family owns in the Adirondack woods, exactly 14 years after the mysterious disappearance of her brother, Bear. From there, the narrative dips back in time to show Barbara’s mother, Alice, trapped in an oppressive marriage, drugged during childbirth, forbidden to nurse, and isolated from everything natural about raising her kids. In the present, the search for Barbara in wild places slowly reveals Van Laar family’s secrets that never quite disappeared. Upon arriving to Camp Emerson, girls are taught to “sit down and yell” should they find themselves lost in the forest. The mystery of what happened to Barbara may prove that staying in one place and crying for help is exactly what women determined to survive should never do.
The God of the Woods is among Benjamin Bradley's four mystery novels that explore legacy, Sandra Chwialkowska's five titles where bad things happen in beautiful places, Midge Raymond's eight books about women keeping secrets and Molly Odintz's eight thrillers & horror novels set at terrible summer camps.
--Marshal Zeringue
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