4. Into the Forest

By Jean Hegland 

Writing a retroactive review during my 2025 sabbatical.  Thinking of putting this book in the trade pile as I didn’t really connect with it.  There was a bit of a trend to revisit YA post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction that was published before The Hunger Games mainstreamed the entire genre, ie. The Giver, Z for Zachariah, How I Live Now...

 

I think I ordered a copy of Into the Forest shortly after I heard Patricia Rozema had directed the film adaptation, which came out in 2015.  I wanted to read the novel first since the premise sounded like something in my wheelhouse, a coming-of-age story set in Northern California with an apocalyptic backdrop.  A lot of my memories are mixed with imagery from the movie, which was a fairly faithful adaptation.

 

Nell and Eve are teenage sisters living with their hermit dad in the Redwood forest.  They’re still coping after their mother’s death and their contact with the outside world is sporadic, so it takes them a while to realize that civilization has collapsed.  Like The Road and Ice, the reasons are vague, so you know the author is aiming for character-driven speculative fiction, so I’m expecting some heavy themes.  Weeks and months pass by and the family is left without internet, telephone, electricity, mail or gas.  A gruesome accident befalls the father when he’s chain-sawing logs and the sisters are left to fend for themselves.  Eve spends inordinate amounts of time dancing to a metronome, while her younger sister Nell forages for food and does practical things to stay alive.

 

I think Hegland was attempting to portray how two isolated teenagers would adapt after societal collapse.  Before the troubles came, Eve dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer, while Nell was a shy and reserved kid who yearned for companionship and a sense of belonging.  As orphans, Eve copes by escaping into dance, while Nell is the one who levels up and looks after them both.  She has an opportunity to make a risky journey to Boston with a boy she likes but she changes her mind when she realizes she needs to take care of Eve.  At some point, Eve gets raped while Nell was out foraging.  There’s a somewhat controversial section when Nell comforts a traumatized Eve and they become physically intimate with Nell helping Eve climax.  The sisters don’t become lovers, it’s more to show how much Nell loves her sister that she’s willing to help Eve reclaim her sexuality.  They're able to replace an act of violence with an act of pure love.  Eve later decides to keep the baby.

 

After a severe storm, the house is in danger of collapsing, so the sisters take refuge in a hollowed out tree stump that once served as their playhouse.  Eve gives birth to a boy and the sisters decide to set fire to their house so that people will think they perished in the flames.  They then set off into the woods with the baby and that’s how the story ends.

 

I totally got what Hegland was trying to achieve and generally liked how it was written.  I just didn’t connect with the narrative nor the characters.  I think I was holding onto the book in case my daughter ever wanted to read it, but I don’t think she’ll connect with it either.