The Hanging Woods (Hardcover)

by Scott Loring Sanders (Author) "IN 1975, WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN, I killed a fox..." (more)
Key Phrases: hanging woods, stronger part, pea field, Sheriff Walls, Guinness Book, Earl Swit (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up—This psychological thriller is told by a seemingly unrepentant murderer. Walter narrates a tale of the tenuous friendship of three boys at loose ends during the summer before they begin high school. Walter lives with his parents in relative comfort in spite of his father's brutal verbal abuse. Mothball, perhaps the most well adjusted of the three, is overweight and easygoing, part of a large family with little money. Jimmy is obviously troubled; it is revealed that the abuse he suffers does not stop with physical blows, but extends to sexual assault. Tensions mount as the boys push one another in ways that go beyond the normal teen behavior. Many bizarre events occur, not the least of which is Mothball's obsession with keeping a turkey alive after its head has been severed. Sanders tries to develop the case for Walter being psychopathic, dripping clues about fire, bedwetting, and cruelty to animals. But, these clues are blatantly superficial. The animal cruelty depicted is within the context of learning to hunt; the fire is presented as an accident. Readers are also misled by the fact that Walter tells the story, yet is untruthful, giving several false clues. There are some elements of true suspense and many very well-written passages, yet the book as a whole is not as cohesive as it could be.—Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD
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From Booklist
At the opening of this disturbing novel, 15-year-old Walter bludgeons a fox to death and feels, for the first time, “how flimsy life is.” The first scene’s visceral brutality forms the undercurrent to this suspenseful story, set in a small, economically depressed town in 1975 Alabama. Caught restlessly between childhood and adolescence, Walter and his best friends, Mothball and Jimmy, share a camaraderie spiked with aggression that echoes racial tensions in their community and in their homes. While reading his mother’s diary, Walter discovers a horrifying secret, unleashing a chain of shocking events that ends in murder. Writing in Walter’s believable voice, Sanders suggests motivations that lead the characters to act, but despite his efforts, the novel maintains a persistent moral ambiguity and a rushed ending that will unsettle readers. Themes of crime, punishment, and the mysterious, lethal volatility that can result from guilt, rage, sorrow, cruelty, and unspoken truths drive this gripping story, which, like Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable (2006), invites readers to examine the darkest facets of human behavior. Grades 9-12. --Gillian Engberg

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (March 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618881255
• ISBN-13: 978-0618881253
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #522,040 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Modern, and More Real, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', April 5, 2008

By	Clifford Garstang (Staunton, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm not saying that this debut novel is destined to endure like the Harper Lee classic, but there are some similiarities: 3 kids on the verge of trouble, a mystery man in a small Alabama town, a heated trial. In one way, though, this book will resonate in a way Mockingbird can't. These kids are real. They aren't angels. And they come from deeply flawed families. Kids today might have a hard time relating to Scout Finch, but they may see themselves in Walter Sithol.

And although the book is clearly a YA novel, its sharp edges and dark side will keep a more mature reader engaged right to the end. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Full Review:

On the one hand, The Hanging Woods, the debut novel from Scott Loring Sanders, seems unmistakably to be in the "young-adult" genre. It is about early teen boys, and its language and situations are clearly geared for young people. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine a darker story, or a protagonist as flawed as young Walter Sithol. And that leads me to wonder what young readers think of this boy, which also leads me to doubt my initial certainty that this book is solely for teenagers. While I believe they can handle it and learn from it, I also think that the adult reader will appreciate the complexities that emerge in the three central characters and enjoy the awful story that unfolds.

Walter is a typical boy in a small Alabama town in the mid-70s. His father is tough on him and his mother is over-protective. He hangs out with Jimmy and Raymond, known as Mothball, and they swim and fish and hang out together and occasionally get on each others' nerves. Walter carries a secret, though, and it may mildly annoy the reader that he refers to having seen his mother's diary without disclosing to the reader what he has read there. In any case, for various reasons tension builds between Walter and the other boys. Sanders renders these three boys with care, so that they are utterly distinct: Jimmy, the ringleader and troublemaker; Mothball, the chubby one, afraid of everything; and Walter, the smart one, the one who seems to have a firmer sense of right and wrong.

Then there is "the Troll," a Vietnam veteran who lives under a bridge and becomes both a legend and a mystery to the boys, a town oddity for them to taunt and an easy scapegoat when things go wrong. The more the Troll is revealed in this story, the more the whole book seems to be following the model of To Kill a Mockingbird. The three kids in some ways even resemble Scout, Jem, and Dill; the Troll seems very much like Boo Radley; and eventually there is even a trial scene that echoes the one in the Harper Lee classic. There's nothing wrong with imitating a masterpiece, but what's ingenious here is that just at the point where the reader is convinced that Mockingbird is the template, Sanders has young Walter read that novel and learn from it. And it is from that point on that The Hanging Woods diverges and becomes its own terrifying story.

It is, I think, risky to place a boy such as Walter at the center of a novel, particularly one aimed at young people. And yet, the author trusts the reader of any age to see Walter's flaws, and to keep reading despite them. It's a gamble that pays off.

This is a very good read. Highly recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is one creepy book (in the very best way)!, March 26, 2008

By	Pinckney Benedict (Carbondale, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is tagged as YA, and that's appropriate: it's a terrific book for older kids who don't need to be spoonfed pablumized literature, and who want the real thing.

It's also a great and compelling read for adult lovers of good lit as well. Smart, frightening, often (starkly) hilarious, plotty, full of twists and turns. A book that catches up the reader in its dark passages.

In short: This guy can write!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, November 18, 2008

By	TeensReadToo.com "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

You know that feeling you get when you pass a particularly horrific accident? It's not that you want someone to be hurt, but you can't help slowing down to look. That's how I felt as I began reading this book.

The year is 1975, shortly after the end of the Vietnam War. Times are tough. Tempers flare and the stress level is high. There are many historical elements that firmly root this story in this time period, yet the events and emotions in this story are not relegated to the 70's. Knowing this human condition exists today gives it even more impact.

Scott Loring Sanders deftly places the reader into the mind of thirteen-year-old Walter. Through Walter, the reader will experience the killing of a fox up close and personal. I could feel the fear and panic of the fox as he struggled against the trap. I felt the life energy of that fox dissipate into nothing through the handle of the stick used to beat him senseless, and I felt both Walter's revulsion and thrill over his first kill. His grandfather had insisted on this savage method. He told Walter, "...you gotta learn the hard way, really feel it with your hands, so you can appreciate the easy way."

This first chapter sets the tone of the book. Disturbing, you say? Absolutely. Fascinating? Positively! I read on, I'll admit, with some trepidation, as a reader who neither hunts, nor appreciates the feeling of satisfaction that hunters must feel when taking their prize, a foreigner to this male world of violence and dominance.

Meet Walter's friends. Jimmy is the leader who's rough around the edges, chiseled and hardened at the hands of his abusive, alcoholic father. Mothball's the chubby oddball who aims to become famous by beheading a chicken in just the right way so that he, Mothball, can keep it alive for over eighteen months and, therefore, beat the Guinness Book record. As you might imagine, he's subjected to more than his share of pranks and jokes, which makes him even more determined to succeed.

The boys walk the town in the wee hours of the morning as they pull off ever-escalating pranks on the local townspeople. To prove to one another that they aren't chicken, the risk and fear factors are taken up a notch each night. They venture further toward the Hanging Woods, Niggertown, and the Troll, a homeless Vietnam War veteran. When Troll sees them, they race home, adrenaline pumping, fear lighting a fire beneath their feet. But neither Jimmy nor Mothball knows Walter's secret, that Troll knows him. He called him by name!

The temperament of a thirteen-year-old around his parents is, by design, often volatile and argumentative. These are the times that teens must decide for themselves who they are and who they want to be. They examine the values their parents have tried to teach and compare them with the values their parents have shown. They are bombarded with the voices and opinions of their peers and walk a tightrope between what they are coming to believe about the world, and what they have been taught to believe. Imagine the turmoil Walter must feel when his safety net is snatched away the day he reads the secrets in his mother's diary. Walter's interpretation of those events results in his slow unraveling. The shift in the foundation of his world leaves Walter feeling unable to do anything more than stand by and let the darkness inside take over.

Other reviews have compared this book to TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD by Harper Lee and I see the similarities. Certainly the author has nailed the social atmosphere of the time, an interesting statement in itself, since
the two books are set forty years apart. Both books masterfully address cruelty, hate, and prejudice, and both feature an innocent character on trial who makes the perfect target, in part, because they are reclusive and strange, the criminal stereotype. But for me, the similarities end there. Where Atticus Finch patiently strives to teach and show high moral values, the parents in THE HANGING WOODS are equally dysfunctional, instead teaching their son anger, frustration, and resignation.

As I read this book, I was strangely reminded of the classic movie, THE CHRISTMAS STORY, but without the light humor. Both feature rough, real-men-don't-cry type fathers; apologetic, coddling mothers; and sons struggling to find their place in their family and the world. In both, you become immersed in the strange world of guy bonding; fathers attempting to grow their sons up tough.

THE HANGING WOODS is a riveting look into a disturbed mind. I doubt I will soon forget the images and emotions Scott Loring Sanders brought forth in this, his first novel. I warn you, this is a dark, troubling read that will niggle at your conscience for days, if not weeks. But if you're like me, you won't be able to put it down until you find out if Walter's okay, in just the same way that you can't help slowing to view that accident.

I have compared THE HANGING WOODS to two enduring classics. I found myself researching the Tallapoosa River that separated Walter and his friends from Niggertown. I asked a social studies teacher what he knew of the Tallapoosa and the history of the time period. This novel completely got under my skin and instilled a desire in me to find out more.

How could I not also give it a Gold Star? I look forward to reading what Mr. Sanders has to offer next.

Reviewed by: Cana Rensberger