into the woods with stephen king

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.

In The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King, nine year-old Trisha gets separated from her mother and older brother who are hiking ahead of her and arguing during a Saturday outing on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

Trisha makes a very bad decision when she decides to peel off from the main trail and pee in the woods, both as an act of frustration at having to listen to her mother and brother argue, and as an act of defiance — to see if they even notice.

The paths had forked in a 'Y.' She would simply walk across the gap and rejoin the main trail. Piece of cake. There was no chance of getting lost.

She loses her bearings almost immediately and through a series of not-great decisions, manages to get very lost in the woods, far away from her bickering family and anyone else who could help her.

King presents Trisha’s journey through the woods and out of childhood. The book is cleverly structured like a baseball game, with each inning presenting a new challenge for Trisha and her survival.

Trisha is as resourceful as she is foolish, and has to deal with injuries and her ever-dwindling food supply. She also seems to be stalked by something from the shadows, which may or may not be of this world. The further into the woods Trisha goes, the further she gets from the day-to-day life, the world the rest of us live in. The only thing that keeps her connected to her old and familiar world is tuning into Red Sox games on her Walkman, which feature her beloved relief pitcher Tom Gordon. When the Walkman’s batteries start to fail, Gordon still shows up to help guide and advise her. Trisha also has to contend with an annoying, but she suspects, correct voice in her head:

Besides, you may never get to be Pete's age, that disquieting inner voice said. How could anyone have such a cold and scary voice inside them? Such a traitor to the cause? You may never get out of these woods.

Little Red Riding Hood, by Arthur Rackham, 1909

Although King doesn’t really push the analogy, I couldn’t help but think of Trisha as a modern Little Red Riding Hood, trying to make her way through the forest once she strayed from the path. King and Trisha keep a running inventory of the contents of her backpack, which adds to the anxiety felt by lead character and reader. When she starts out for the day she has a bottle of water, a bottle of Surge soda, a boiled egg, a tuna fish sandwich, Twinkies for dessert, a blue poncho, her Game Boy, and a Walkman, which will prove very useful, at least psychologically. How will she survive for more than a day in the woods with so few things?

Trisha is not only a very engaging hero, but a survivor, and we follow along with her, step by step, even when we’re sure she is setting off in wrong directions, making wrong conclusions. Trisha has recent memories of her brother Pete, her parents and their recent divorce, her best friend the improbably-named Pepsi Robichaud, and hallucinations of Gordon and other, more scary creatures, to keep her company in her seemingly endless trudge through the woods. At times I felt that King may have made Trisha too young — would a nine year-old really think in such an adult way? But maybe we underestimate our kids, especially kids touched by divorce.

The Girl Who loved Tom Gordon is beautifully written, and pretty much impossible to put down. If you can devote the time, you will be compelled to finish it in a day, even one sitting, as the tensions and dangers surrounding Trisha mount — it is very hard to walk away from such a brave little girl and not find out what happens, what will be her ultimate fate in the woods.

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