Man in the Woods

Starred review from July 5, 2010
Spencer, a deft explorer of obsessive love and violence, confronts the consequences of doing wrong for all the right reasons in his exquisite latest. Paul Phillips, a master carpenter, is living in bucolic upstate New York with Kate Ellis, the woman Spencer first introduced, along with her beguiling daughter, Ruby, in A Ship Made of Paper. But Paul's life begins to implode after a chance encounter results in an irrevocable act that no one witnesses, save a mixed-breed dog he renames Shep. Paul suffers the burden of his terrible secret: the fear of discovery and punishment and the equally disturbing fear of getting away with his crime. The incident and its fallout color his just-about-perfect life with lover Kate, now a recovered alcoholic turned famous inspirational writer, and particularly affects nine-year-old Ruby. As always, Spencer creates complex and genuine characters, the most marvelous character being Shep, the hapless rescue dog who endures abuse and becomes Ruby's pet. Spencer portrays the dog's life minus the sentimentality and anthropomorphism forced upon animals in fiction, and ingeniously uses Shep in this compelling story's dénouement—which underscores how even the most loving relationship might not be able to redeem a deadly act.

June 15, 2010

Once again, Spencer brings us to Leyden, NY, and into the lives of Kate Ellis and her daughter, Ruby, seen in National Book Award nominee A Ship Made of Paper. Kate is now a successful spiritual adviser with a lucrative bookseller and radio program following her self-help newspaper column called "Prays Well with Others." The "man in the woods" is Paul Phillips, her current lover. He is a self-employed carpenter who tailors his work to wealthy clients in Manhattan. One day after a stressful trip into the city, he stops at a state park to stretch his legs and comes across a man physically abusing a dog. Paul steps in to save the dog and uncontrollably beats the stranger to death. He keeps quiet about this for some time but finally unburdens himself to Kate. She encourages him to try and avoid the consequences of his crime and plans for them to leave the country soon. Adopting the abused dog determines his fate. VERDICT This plot-driven work is an engaging page-turner, but deeper character development with more insight and angst could have made this story unforgettable. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/10.]--Lisa Rohrbaugh, National Coll., Youngstown, OH

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2010

In one of the richer efforts by the veteran novelist, a compelling setup and stunning conclusion compensate for the thematic navel gazing through the middle.

Spencer returns to the scene of A Ship Made of Paper (2003), a novel that elicited some of his best reviews, bringing back writer Kate Ellis, her daughter, Ruby, and their hometown of Leyden, N.Y. Yet this novel isn't exactly a sequel and can be read independently of the earlier work. Its protagonist is Paul Phillips, a master craftsman who refuses to compromise either his carpentry or his principles. He has become Kate's lover and a surrogate father to Ruby after doing some work at their house. The divorced Kate, previously a newspaper reporter, is now the bestselling author of Prays Well with Others, an inspirational account of her recovering alcoholism and embrace of faith. With hints of Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott in "her kind of Christianity, one that includes a fair amount of swearing and swagger, left-of-center politics, and all the sex your average heathen would enjoy," she has come to believe that her life has a plan, purpose and meaning, and that the love she shares with Paul is an essential part of that divine will. A Dostoyevskian complication drives the plot, as chance (or is it fate?) leads Paul to tragedy--an encounter with a stranger in the woods, a man beating his dog, that will change the lives of all concerned and upset the delicate balance that Kate and Paul have come to believe is their destiny. Ultimately, the novel's title could refer as much to Paul, who must come to terms with the man he has become, after he did what he never believed he could. What seems to some like "a universe in which the pieces fit together beautifully" just might be "a universe where nothing is guaranteed and nothing can stop bad things from happening."

The depth of the characters, the questions they ask and the challenge they confront stay with the reader long after the conclusion.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from August 1, 2010
Spencer has described his characters as people who are not above a ruthless moment, and here a chance encounter mired in misunderstanding damages lives irretrievably. Will Claff, who flees cross-country to escape a large gambling debt, is in the woods with his ex-girlfriends dog when he comes upon Paul Phillips. Will thinks Paul is the enforcer pursuing him, while Paul simply sees Will as a man kicking his dog. When their ensuing scuffle turns fierce, Pauls fury and instinct take the place of thought, leaving Will dead. As Paul, a master carpenter who lives in Leyden, New York, with writer Kate Ellis and her nine-year-old daughter, Ruby (introduced in A Ship Made of Paper, 2003), tries to deal with what he has done, Kate rides a surge of popularity and profit from her book Prays Well with Others. Pauls revelation of his despair plunges them both into darkness, while a detective who likes to make sense of things investigates Wills death. Spencer, a master of piercing insight and letter-perfect prose, tantalizes to the last climactic sentence of this compelling exploration of the wages of guilt.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)