Book Review: The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (2017)

Review 2.9

Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality–not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. [Source]

Right from the title, something rings false about The Stranger in the Woods. Finkel (or his publisher) draws us in with the promise of the last “true hermit”, and then spends a large amount of the book’s length debating whether or not Christopher Knight was even technically a hermit at all.

This book was odd. I don’t quite know how else to describe it. Author Michael Finkel doesn’t seem to know exactly what point he is trying to make. The sections describing his interviews with Knight are juxtaposed with chapters detailing the history of hermits and the psychological need for human interaction. However, Knight’s particular case is so unusual that he shares almost nothing in common with what we often think of as a hermit. Knight did not enter the forest seeking wisdom. He wasn’t running from something or trying to hide from the government. He did not embark on a spiritual journey. There are really only two pieces of information that I took away from this book.

1. Knight was just a guy who wanted to be left alone.

2. He committed hundreds of burglaries in order to achieve that goal.

Those are essentially the only ideas that Finkel was able to convey in The Stranger in the Woods. Knight was not some noble hero; he stole every single thing that kept him alive during his decades in the forest. He made people feel insecure and ill-at-ease in their own homes. He said in court that he was deeply ashamed of his actions, but was he truly sorry for stealing or only sorry that he was finally caught? Finkel doesn’t explore any of those questions, and instead adopts an almost fanboy-esque attitude towards Knight.

One of my goals this year was to read more nonfiction, but it wasn’t until The Stranger in the Woods that I fully understood how important a role the author plays in this kind of narrative. As readers, we need to be able to trust Finkel and his motivations in order to accept his version of events as the truth. Finkel, who was fired from the New York Times in 2002 for false reporting, does not inspire that kind of trust. But even before I knew about the NYT incident, something felt off about Finkel and his attitude towards Christopher Knight.

Finkel becomes increasingly stalkerish as The Stranger in the Woods progresses. He shows up announced and uninvited to visit Knight in jail. He shows up unannounced and uninvited at Knight’s family home. He refuses to listen to Knight’s frequent pleas to “stay away” and “leave me alone”. During the course of his time spent with Knight, Finkel traveled through the dense Maine woods no fewer than eight times in order to visit Knight’s “camp”, spending the night on several occasions in a kind of pilgrimage. He asks psychiatrists who have never met or heard of Christopher Knight to talk about whether or not Knight might be autistic. It all adds up to a narrator who is unreliable, unprofessional, and potentially unethical. I felt a cringy, awkward sort of empathy for Knight as Finkel refused to leave him alone. After all, that’s all Knight ever wanted in the first place.

My rating: 2/5

You can find The Stranger in the Woods here on Amazon or here on Book Depository. The Audible version is narrated by Mark Bramhall and can be found here.

Happy reading everyone!

Book Review: Speak: The Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and illustrated by Emily Carroll

Review 2.8

“Speak up for yourself-we want to know what you have to say.” 

From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless–an outcast–because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. Through her work on an art project, she is finally able to face what really happened that night: She was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. [Source]

Apparently I live under a rock, because I had never heard of Laurie Halse Anderon’s award winning 1999 novel, Speak. It only came to my attention when I learned that Emily Carroll had done the illustrations for the graphic novel edition of the book, which was released last year. Carroll wrote and illustrated the fantastically creepy Through the Woods, which was among the favorite books that I read last year. I immediately ordered a copy from my library and brought it home.

It sat on my desk for six weeks.

I could never bring myself to actually begin reading Speak. I knew it was going to be one of those books that left me feeling wrung out and exhausted, and I just couldn’t commit myself. A few days before the book had to be returned to the library, I finally decided to make myself a giant cup of hot chocolate, top it off with a dash of brandy, and curl up on my couch to finish the book.

I’m so glad I did.

I haven’t read the original source material, but Anderson’s writing style adapts itself perfectly to the graphic novel format. Her narrative has a lyrical, almost poetic quality; it bounces from subject to subject in a continual train of thought that carries us into Melinda’s mind. The mind of the average high school girl is a swirling maze of pressure and anxiety: pressure to fit in, to get good grades, to be popular to have boys like you, pressure from parents, from peers, from boys. Melinda, who is dealing with more anxiety and pressure than any ninth grader should ever have to experience, is teetering on the knife’s edge between crippling depression and debilitating stress. Her experiences are as tragic as they are tragically ordinary, and Melinda’s journey to find her voice is a powerful one.

Emily Carroll is a tremendously talented artist, and her illustrations heighten and define Melinda’s experiences in so many ways. Notice the way Melinda is nearly always depicted with her hair covering part of her face as she seeks to hide from staring eyes. Or how certain characters are drawn with horribly exaggerated features. Carroll has a tendency towards the macabre that I love, and it suits the dark material presented in Speak.

I put off reading this book because I thought it was going to leave me feeling bitter and upset. Instead, I found Speak to be empowering. As Melinda journeys out of the darkness and finds her voice, there were a series of small victories. A new friend. A helping hand. A sympathetic teacher. Small reminders that a person is never really alone. I’ll take this as a reminder that the most difficult stories to read are often the most important to tell.

My rating: 4.5/5

You can find Speak: The Graphic Novel here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Happy reading everyone!