Author Liz Moore taps Adirondack experiences in acclaimed novel ‘The God of the Woods’

Mystery unfolds at a summer camp set among a backdrop of class issues that play out in fictional Adirondack community

By Jack Rightmyer

In July, author Liz Moore published her fourth novel, “The God of the Woods.” It became one of the most popular books of the summer. The propulsive mystery is set at an exclusive summer camp for the children of wealth in the Adirondacks and it grabs readers with its opening sentence: “The bed is empty.”

“I never know going into a novel what the outcome will be,” said Moore, 41, from her home in Philadelphia. “I generally know the place, the main characters, and the first problem which in this novel was that a 13-year-old girl would go missing from a summer camp. The girl would be the child of the camp owners, and I also knew that 14 years earlier her older brother had also disappeared mysteriously. I had to figure it out from there.”

The genesis of this novel began when she was a fellow at the Yaddo Artists Retreat in Saratoga Springs. “It was early winter 2019 when I was at Yaddo and reading about Spencer and Katrina Trask, the founders of the retreat. They lived tragic lives and suffered the deaths of their four children in unrelated incidents, and I began to think how great wealth cannot protect us from tragedy.”

Nods to Adirondack history

Readers will notice parallels with another wealthy Adirondack family that suffered a great loss. It occurred in 1971 at the Santanoni Great Camp in the town of Newcomb when 8-year-old Douglas Legg mysteriously disappeared on a hike with his uncle. An extensive, six-week search drew hundreds of volunteers and police but to this day there has been no trace of the boy and the case is still open.

“I did know about the Douglas Legg incident from growing up and visiting the Adirondacks, and that story certainly influenced my parents in warning me about the dangers of getting lost in the woods and what to do if you were lost. I guess in some way a thread of that story did find its way into the novel, but it was not intentional.”

The novel includes a fictional serial killer named Jacob Sluiter who will remind many Adirondack readers of Robert Garrow who in 1973 murdered four people at or near campsites and led police on a 12-day manhunt throughout the Adirondacks. 

“My parents and especially my uncle had close calls with Garrow. They never encountered him, but my uncle was camping in the woods at the time he was loose. When I was a little girl I heard all the stories about him and staying at our camp, even though Garrow was already dead, I would listen for him walking around outside. His story is a reminder how the woods can be such a beautiful place, but it can also hide danger, and I wanted to capture some of that in my novel.”

Personal experience

Moore also used some of her own experience from when she attended an Adirondack summer camp. “I went to summer camp twice. I don’t want to name the camp to malign them unfairly, and it was a much different camp than the one I portrayed in the book. The camp I attended was not for wealthy children. I went for three weeks and like the novel we did spend three days on a trip into the wilderness led by two counselors who taught us survival skills. I didn’t enjoy the camp. I was like my character Tracy who ended up in a cabin where everyone knew each other and where groups had already been formed. Like Tracy I also felt like an outsider.”

You can’t write a novel set in the Adirondacks and not include the theme of income inequality. “The Adirondacks, like so much of our country, suffers from income disparity because it’s a summer destination for so many wealthy people who rely on working-class people to prepare their food and take care of their properties. It’s morally very complex and as a writer I’m drawn to that. In the late 1800’s some of the wealthiest families in America came to the Adirondacks and New York State has protected much of the area to keep it a summer and winter playground. I’m glad the land has been protected, but I also know privatizing the land displaced many working-class people.”

Moore, who visits the Adirondacks annually at her family’s retreat, does an excellent job describing the interior lives of the wealthy people like the Van Laars, who own the novel’s summer camp, and the local staff they employ. “Our camp in the Adirondacks is very modest. It was built in the 1970’s by my grandparents near the site where my maternal grandmother’s ancestors first settled in the early 1800’s.”

Moore visits her camp and the Adirondacks as often as she can. Her favorite mountain to hike is Hadley and she loves the Lake George area. “We have no cell service at the camp, and I love that. It’s a place where I do some of my best writing. The camp is basically one main room with very small bedrooms off from it. I write sitting on a bed in an upstairs room. There’s no desk. It’s very peaceful.”

She loved going there as a kid and enjoys seeing her own children adore the camp as much as she did. “It’s devoid of technology so there’s nothing to distract you from your time with family. My kids are forced to use their imaginations when up at camp, and it’s a place that brings us all together.”