The Wilderness: A Leslie Stone Novel [Paperback]

Karen Novak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 2004

Read the dark and thrilling new Leslie Stone novel that asks the question: Can violence and its legacy ever be absolved?

When the body of an elderly man is found naked, frozen to death on the grounds of an abandoned petting zoo near where private investigator Leslie Stone lives with her family, the discovery triggers what Leslie calls the "haunted amusement park" of her mind. Voices and apparitions she knows to be hallucinatory disrupt her waking world. And she is unable to forget that the old man has left behind what seems like a riddle: an odd drawing and a children's poem with a shifting meaning, titled "The Wilderness."

Compelled to find out what happened, Leslie finds her search interlacing with that of investigative journalist Sophia Mallory, who is tracing her personal path through the historical tragedy of slavery and its aftermath. Together they uncover a pattern of institutionalized violence so brutal, so inexplicable, that it resembles a curse. As "The Wilderness" leads each woman deeper into the past, it also leads them deeper into their own psyches, forcing them to question their motives for solving a mystery which threatens to destroy the lives of everyone they love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Novak's third broodingly introspective novel featuring Leslie Stone, the troubled former New York City cop who became a PI specializing in missing children finds herself primarily playing the role of an alienated smalltown wife and mother of two daughters, struggling to keep her marriage alive and to maintain a handle on her mental illness. But duty and domesticity take a backseat when news of the discovery of a body at an abandoned petting zoo sparks a fleeting hallucination of a peacock and Leslie's morbid, insatiable interest. No one claims the body, and Leslie's need to learn more is fired by the artfully written papers the old man left behind. She takes a trip to the zoo site, sees strange visions and ends up frostbitten, confused and in a psych ward, questioning her ability to maintain a normal life. Haunted by the graffiti of a peacock, a child's rhyme scrawled on the walls of the cabin and the air of dark mystery that surrounds the death of the old man, Leslie becomes more and more frenzied. A journalist with ties to the case provides crucial information, and soon an old flame resurfaces. Claustrophobic despite its shifting points of view (Leslie's daughters; her husband), Novak's novel repels and fascinates with its story of a woman's single-minded obsession.
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About the Author

Karen Novak is the author of two other Leslie Stone novels, File Mile House and Innocence, as well as Ordinary Monsters. She lives in Mason, Ohio.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (December 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582344833
• ISBN-13: 978-1582344836
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,846,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a bit off, October 23, 2009

By 

Matthew Schiariti (new jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wilderness: A Leslie Stone Novel (Paperback)

first off I'd like to say that it amazes me that there aren't more reviews of Karen Novak's works...She's a fantastic writer and has put out some wonderful novels...Being that there's only three other reviews on this book I doubt anybody's going to read it..but here we go

The Wilderness...

An elderly man is found dead and naked near where Leslie and her family (reunited with her steadfast husband Greg after the events of Innocence) reside. Leslie, ex cop, ex private investigator, just can't seem to let this man's mysterious death go without sticking her nose into it....that triggers her particular brand of lunacy to kick in leading her to the body of a girl in a river, killed and forgotten many many years ago...during this, she's contacted by an author who is doing her own investigation into the past events of the town where Leslie lives...what they uncover are brutal crimes that date back over a hundred years..

that's the basic premise of the book...normally I've loved everything Novak has written, especially Five Mile House which I felt is one of the best contemporary 'ghost stories' I've ever read..but something just didn't grab me with this book.

I found it a little hard to follow. Yes, I know...'complex plot' is something that alot of people like to kick around. I like a nice rich tapestry of mystery as much as anybody, but what makes it hard to follow is multifaceted.

There's Leslie's 'visions' for one. I don't have a problem with that usually. In fact, it's Leslie's crazy obsessions to the point of forsaking her family that makes me love to HATE her more often than not. (beleive me, she does irreparable damage to her family this time out)

But I think it's really the way the book is written that makes it a bit tough to digest. There's alot of vivid imagery and allegory, similies, metaphors involved in Leslie's talking head scenes. (as an aside, alot of the book is first person narrative..not as much dialogue with the other characters as i would have liked). It's almost to the point where it seems to be overly flowery just for the sake of being so at times. Couple that with Leslie's lunacy and it's a little hard to chew on sometimes.

There's a return of a previously established character that I find to be a bottom feeder. I didn't care for how things went down with that either.

At the end of the day, there IS a good story in here. I don't have to agree with the main character's decisions or even like her more than I hate her to enjoy the book. It's very difficult to put into words why I didn't enjoy this as much as her previous novels.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shining a Light Into the Darkness, January 24, 2005

By 

Lorraine Berry (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wilderness: A Leslie Stone Novel (Paperback)

The Wilderness's plot has been described in the editorial reviews above. The plot is complex, and mystery fans will not be disappointed. However, this book is not just for mystery fans--it's a complex psychological meditation on our ability as a society to see evil.

When someone hires a private investigator to find the thing that is missing, he or she is, in essence, asking for help in seeing the thing that cannot be seen. Sometimes, that thing is standing out in the open; it is the client who won't see. And it is that type of willful not seeing that is a theme that runs through Novak's books. Because the first thing that Novak questions is whether it is voluntary blindness or a trick of the eye that keeps us as human beings stuck in darkness.

Novak's characters illuminate their own blind spots for us the readers while they remain unable to bring them into autofocus. As with all of us who choose to remain conscious in a world where we might better long for the sweet release of oblivion, Novak's characters circle around
their own blind spots as a person might do who is trying to see her own spine by looking over her shoulder. You know it's there and visible to others, but you have to accept that it's part of who you are and forever out of sight.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I made it through "The Wilderness", August 13, 2005

By 

Trevor (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wilderness: A Leslie Stone Novel (Paperback)

Karen Novak has created a nuanced and hauntingly stylized universe for her tour-de-force heroine, Leslie Stone. In "The Wilderness," Novak weaves a stunningly disturbing tale filled with suspense, mystique and spectres of evils past. If you are looking for a book that will devour you as much as you devour it, "The Wilderness" will not leave you disappointed. Clearly, the woman who left the one star review for this amazing book has all of her taste in her mouth.