The Inverted Forest

by John Dalton

Late on a warm summer night in rural Missouri, an elderly camp director hears a squeal of joyous female laughter and goes to investigate. At the camp swimming pool he comes upon a bewildering scene: his counselors stripped naked and engaged in a provocative celebration. The first camp session is set to start in just two days. He fires them all. As a result, new counselors must be quickly hired and brought to the Kindermann Forest Summer Camp.

One of them is Wyatt Huddy, a genetically disfigured young man who has been living in a Salvation Army facility. Gentle and diligent, large and imposing, Wyatt suffers a deep anxiety that his intelligence might be subnormal. All his life he’s been misjudged because of his irregular features. But while Wyatt is not worldly, he is also not an innocent. He has escaped a punishing home life with a reclusive and violent older sister.

Along with the other new counselors, Wyatt arrives expecting to care for children. To their astonishment, they learn that for the first two weeks of the camping season they will be responsible for 104 severely developmentally disabled adults, all of them wards of the state. For Wyatt it is a dilemma that turns his world inside out. Physically, he is indistinguishable from the state hospital campers he cares for. Inwardly, he would like to believe he is not of their tribe. Fortunately for Wyatt, there is a young woman on staff who understands his predicament better than he might have hoped.

At once the new counselors and disabled campers begin to reveal themselves. Most are well-intentioned; others unprepared. Some harbor dangerous inclinations. Among the campers is a perplexing array of ailments and appearances and behavior both tender and disturbing. To encounter them is to be reminded just how wide the possibilities are when one is describing human beings.

Soon Wyatt is called upon to prevent a terrible tragedy. In doing so, he commits an act whose repercussions will alter his own life and the lives of the other Kindermann Forest staff members for years to come.

Written with scrupulous fidelity to the strong passions running beneath the surface of camp life, The Inverted Forest is filled with yearning, desire, lust, banked hope, and unexpected devotion. This remarkable and audacious novel amply underscores Heaven Lake’s wide acclaim and confirms John Dalton’s rising prominence as a major American novelist.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Literary Fiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published July 19, 2011

About the author

John Dalton is the author of the novel, Heaven Lake, winner of the Barnes and Noble 2004 Discover Award in fiction and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently a member of the English faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he teaches in their MFA Writing Program. John lives with his wife and two daughters in St. Louis.

Reviews

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I begin what is your IQ rating? Is it important? These categorizations are important in our hum drum of life especially to the walks of life who have had shall we say a less exterior normality for instance one character in this story Wyatt Huddy. He has a facial disfigurement and disorder from birth. The grave truth of us the human race is we label, point, snicker and gossip. We discriminate for race, for abilities and disabilities, appearance and size. In this case this gem of a story you are put amongst the lesser fortunate they are not children but their brain functionality is hindered.

The forest is the setting for campers in one particular camping season they are 104 adults with mental disabilities including down syndrome. Wyatt is one of the forest camp complex workers and is put in charge of camp 2, a quite outrageous group of men that get up to no good with each other during the night. But Wyatt is more than capable and can handle the situations that arise in a good calm manner. He almost finds himself feel more accepted by the adults that have disabilities and recognized more than the workers. They notice him in distress and reach for his help but some new workers behave the opposite and mistake him for the campers due to his facial looks. This story is quite deep and poses many issues and dilemmas we face, i found the story quite heartbreaking and as I revisit the story writing this shed a tear. For we judge to quickly with appearance and first impressions, we give the supposedly able, sane, normal looking a free pass and find they become the ones that commit worst injustices and crime to people. This is story brings me back to Shelley’s novel Frankenstein and how the ugly creation just wanted to assimilate and the rejection he faced is what pushed to him to violent behavior. Repulsion causes reactions of a negative force at times.

Without giving too much away and spoiling the story if you want a touching, meaningful story where the less fortunate take the story to another platform then this is it, engrossing, shocking and a very human story.

“The displacement of his features-the left half of the face higher than the right, the eyes offset by nearly an inch, the nose a bit mashed, the right side of his mouth sloping down had a name, and that those unfamiliar with disorder always assumed its sufferers were mentally retarded, when, luckily or unlucky, they were often average intelligence.

He wasn’t retarded, a fact to be carefully and painfully imparted to every stranger he met. Not disabled. Not handicapped.”



“He attended every staff meeting. He wasn’t retarded. But what was he then? Disfigured maybe. He had a queerly shaped head, a sloping face. Each afternoon he’d guided his campers, one by one, down the pool steps and then sat cross-legged on the deck while they tottered around the shallow end. He wouldn’t take off his shoes and dangle his feet in the water. An odd young man hulking ad private. But he was as aware and capable as any other member of the Kindermann Forest staff.”

“You can’t pick and choose which kids come to your camp. You all sorts. All kinds of campers. All kinds of counselors.’ He shook his head, dismayed. ‘You can’t control it as well as you hoped,’ Schuller said.’After a while, it all gets away from you. It all goes….’ He held out his thin arms.’Beyond your reach.’”

http://more2read.com/?review=the-inverte...

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nurse Harriet Foster is my new favorite heroine and the driving force of this book. The author is obviously a very talented writer with a particular knack for developing characters. This novel induces emotions of all kinds, most commonly discomfort and tension. I don’t think that was necessarily the author’s intention and there were certainly moments of tenderness and calm, but from the perspective of a control freak like myself, I was just waiting for something awful to happen. Perhaps that’s why I never worked as a camp counselor myself; too many potential disasters waiting to happen. I really enjoyed this book, though; it was outside my comfort zone for many reasons but I found new characters to love and a new author to appreciate. 🏕

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

You learn so much about the mentally and physically handicapped in this book. Wyatt is a young man who had been underestimated and bullied most of his life because of his condition called Apert Syndrome which skews his facial features, but there is nothing wrong with him otherwise. He takes a job at a summer camp as a counselor.
Through a series of mishaps, the capable and vetted counselors at this camp, for the mentally and physically disabled, are fired and a second string take charge. One of these, Walter, a lifeguard plans to sexually assault a mentally handicapped girl, it is up to Wyatt and Harriet the camp nurse to make sure this doesn't happen.

[Shellie (Layers of Thought) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars actually - so very close to a five!
Original review posted at Layers of Thought.

A perfect summer novel for those looking for something with a bit more depth in their reading. This novel has an idyllic summer camp setting in the Ozark Mountains, where an unexpected tragedy is set in motion through a series of complicated events. It is a heart wrenching and insightful story that has a diverse and unusual set of characters.

About: When Wyatt Hudy is accepted as a camp counselor for the summer term at the Kinderman Forest Summer Camp at the very last minute, he believes he will be working with children. However, he has not been informed that for the first two week session he and the other new and impromptu counselors will be taking care of disabled adults that are wards of the state. A significant fact is that Wyatt could be mistaken for one of the campers due to a physical deformity he inherited at birth. As a series of seemingly unrelated events occur, there is an incredible build up a for a completely surprising and uncontrollable tragedy; and it does not stop there. What enfolds is at once heartbreaking yet understandable, leading the reader to think about areas that can be viewed as morally and legally ambiguous.

My Thoughts: This novel made me think and feel a great deal of unexpected emotions. The author's densely descriptive and beautifully accessible language helped me to believe that I was there in the mountains in this summer forest setting. But the best part is that the story includes developed, unusually flawed, complex and diverse characters. There are entirely unexpected personality aspects for the characters -counselors, staff, and the campers especially - creating a realistic and often shocking mix. One character could be even classified as the quintessential psychopath of the most insidious kind – one that charms and which most would not remotely suspect. With the questions that this novel will naturally create for its readers, I think The Inverted Forest will be perfect for discussions, though it may bring some heated conversations to the table.

I devoured every moment of the book, kept thinking about the characters, keep thinking about them still even weeks after finishing it. I enjoyed being immersed in the forest setting, one that most Americans will relate to and which is imbedded in our national psyche as a seasonal event – attending or counseling at a summer camp. This is a 4.5 stars and comes very highly recommended for contemporary fiction readers. For me it was the perfect summer setting and a powerful read. It almost made a rare five star status for me.

[Joe Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book by an UMSL prof here in the St Louis area. I took no classes with him when I went back to UMSL for my undergrad, he taught grad-level classes. After reading his book I would have like to have studied with him.

This is an interesting novel. I don't know how to categorize it, I would call it a character study in some ways, or maybe a morality story, but it defies straightforward description. The writing is very good, Dalton has clear writing skill that I did not find particularly dense, it was a pleasant read.

The story was strong with some unexpected twists. I read little of the reviews before I took it up and I think that helped. I was a bit confused as to who the story was about in the very beginning, but everything fell into place before the end.

I bought this used online. The local libraries have it, I could have read it that way, but I will send it on to my brother probably. I am a little disappointed that Dalton has published nothing since this book, in the way of novels anyway. I like his writing.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://charlotteswebofbooks.blogspot....

The Inverted Forest is a magnificent piece of literature. It's beauty is the slow, detailed way the author takes with setting the story. The history of the camp, the beauty of the Ozarks, the life that Wyatt Huddy has lived. There isn't a lot of flash or excitement to The Inverted Forest. It is a story that is carefully plotted out and told with such precision. As a reader we know that something "shocking" is going to happen, and can even predict what is coming. It is after "the event" that the the "truth" about what SHOULD have happened that summer comes to light. And that is far more shocking than "the event."

[Djrmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read this year. Beautiful writing with original, deeply developed characters. Some of them are intriguing, some are heart breaking, some are endearing and some are down right evil, yet none of them are one note. The story appears to be about a young man who, having spent his entire life living down to the expectations others have of him, takes an opportunity to rise above that. However, as the book goes on, the reader discovers that it's not just Wyatt that wants to prove that he is more than meets the eye, but almost everyone in this book, even many of the campers that fateful session at Kindermann Forest Summer Camp.

So why four stars and not five? The time shift at the end seemed unnecessary to me. It brought a supporting character into the main story when she wasn't needed, and added a level of superficiality that hurt the book's literary tone. The story was telling itself up to that point, and then suddenly we have someone who had stayed on the sidelines take over and not add anything that couldn't have been revealed by the main characters themselves.

[Anne Slater · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an absorbing book. The author makes you _need_ to keep reading. It is the strangest story I have read in a long, long time. The four stars I awarded it are NOT because I "really liked" the book. I awarded them because the book is so well written, the characters so well drawn, and the interplay among the characters so honest.

A young man with a curious and unappealing deformity, from a family that is emotionally deformed, takes a job as a counsellor at a summer camp out in a forest. The first campers are retarded and brain-injured adults from a near-by state institution.

If I told you more you'd start thinking too soon about the plot an the whys and hows. Read it. You may hate it, but you can't fault it.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am in an odd position when it comes to reviewing this novel because I fear I can't be as objective with this one as I ought to be. Why? because I make my living working with adults with developmental disabilities. Upon finishing this novel, I was struck less by reflecting on the novel I had just finished than I was by trying to determine if Mr. Dalton actually did his reserach or has ever worked with adults with developmental disabilities before. The scary thing: I can't tell.

One thing taught to you in current day work with DD is that you put "people first." You do not allow a disability to define a person. The definition of this is simple: Bob is not a retarded person. He is a person with mental retardation. The same should apply for any affliction ("person with diabetes" or "person with cerebralpalsy"). Dalton's characters spend so much time referencing "retarded campers" and "retarded people" that I was taken aback. I felt that if Dalton had any experience in this field that he would have known this and been more sensitive in his word choices.

But then again...his book takes place (mostly) in the 90's, an era before the push to put people first. In addition to this, his characters are untrained to handle developmentally-disabled adults. They wouldn't know to put people first, so his novel then becomes spot-on.

That aside...I felt for these characters. In my work, I have experienced these people. I have been stressed by them. And confused by them. And learned from them. And that is why I find the end of this novel so depressing that it's almost offensive.

Spoiler here: Wyatt pretends to be a person with mental retardation (even though he is not) so that he can avoid prison. The other side of that coin: life in a group home where he is not allowed to be a functioning adult and only allowed the rare visit out of the hospital. We ignore that all anyone would have to do in order to determine if Wyatt was really a counselor and not a camper would be to check tax records (since Wyatt would have been paid to be an employee of the camp)...but, on second thought, let's not ignore that. It makes the ending implausible. And Wyatt's eventual abuse of a system that is already full of holes is offensive.

I liked Dalton's writing. I loved Dalton's characters. But, in the end, one hopes that Dalton has no experience in this field. It's more offensive if he does.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two days before the first session at the Kindermann Forest Summer Camp, the camp director fires his entire staff for participation in a lewd late-night pre-session celebration.

Enter Wyatt Huddy, genetically disfigured and trained by life to be pliant and agreeable, currently living in a back room of the Salvation Army. One of a dozen new camp counselors, brought in on the fly, Wyatt and his new colleages are quickly settled in and explained their duties, but not until the first buses of campers roll in are they told that for the first two weeks, the campers are not, in fact, children, but rather handicapped adults from the state hospital. Oops.

Aside from the initial sorting chaos and a few minor incidents, the session begins surprisingly smoothly and humorously. When one counselor begins manipulating staff and campers alike, the situation derails. Wyatt is faced with protecting someone weaker than himself, and his own experience-begotten insecurities.

The first section of The Inverted Forest, more or less indicated above, is an interesting, occasionally humorous, but only mildly surprising build up to an act of violence. The second section, though, turns the previous story on its head. Nicely and smartly flipped.

One of the best features of Dalton’s writing in The Inverted Forest is the careful generosity of it all. In a story with ample opportunity for offense and cruelty, his portrayal of Wyatt, his colleagues (save one), and his campers, even at their worst, is tinged with humor. It renders the reader’s shock at the transgressions greater, and makes the book’s resolution very satisfying. Very good.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a really hard time rating this book. In fact, I keep changing it. I want to give it 0 stars for the awkward perverted parts that made me feel so uncomfortable. I could have given it 4 stars for the non-awkward parts because I really enjoyed the plot idea. I almost put it down to not pick up again several times in the beginning because it was that awkward and unnecessarily perverted. I don't mind a book that makes you think, or pushes the boundaries, but this went way beyond that. In the end I am going with 2 stars because I would not recommend it or read it again based on the uncomfortable parts of the book. I did, however, want to give it two to demonstrate the plot had a lot of potential.

Looking past the bad parts, the idea of a summer camp for mentally impaired adults being run by an untrained group of camp counselors is an interesting one. I enjoying exploring the personalities of the various adults as the unprepared counselors got to know them and understand them. I also was intrigued by Wyatt's personality and his growth and understanding of his own genetic syndrome and understanding what it meant for him.

[Connie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sure I missed something in this book because the reviews are unanimously excellent, but I thought this was an awful read. I could barely stand to finish it. I didn't like the characters. Thought the entire premise was ridiculous. There were small mistakes that bugged me too. (Well, they might not have bothered me if had been enjoying the book, but I wasn't, so they did.) I'll continue to read the reviews and maybe a bolt of lightning will strike me and I'll see the error of my ways. But until it does, this is by far my worst fiction read of the year.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I work with developmentally disabled children and young adults so I'm quite partial to the subject, but I truly loved this book. It uses the word retarded a lot as opposed to its politically correct synonyms but it was otherwise a fabulous piece of literature and I'm so very glad I read it!

[Alane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't read reviews. No review should be written. Just read the book. If it becomes too much, put it down. Otherwise, it is unfair to reveal a single element. I never stopped being surprised. Superb writing.

[Pam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horribly stereotyped descriptions of people with disabilities. Only found 2 positive attributes ascribed to characters with disabilities in the entire book, and MANY negative stereotypes. Had to force myself to finish this one, because it was a book group read.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful and singular novel.

John Dalton, please write another book! (I keep checking the library catalog for a new title by him.)

I'll check out his first novel, Heaven Lake, in the meantime.

[Bryan Basamanowicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

While John Dalton, the famous, 19th century scientist is best known for his sharpening of elemental knowledge into atomic knowledge, John Dalton the novelist is perhaps most admired for the atomically keen precision with which he penetrates the depths of character identity. In his latest novel, The Inverted Forest, Dalton sets up his yarn-spinning laboratory at a week-long special session of a children's summer camp, where a motley rabble of inexperienced counselors are charged, unexpectedly, with the care of mentally handicapped adults.

Schuller Kinderman, a crotchety origami enthusiast, is the owner of Kinderman Forest Summer Camp in rural Missouri. Just days before camp opens, Kinderman catches his counseling staff skinny-dipping and decides, brashly, to fire them all. The last-minute scramble to find new staff turns up a rather standard-looking assortment of replacements--the drug enthusiast, the pretty girl, the skinny virgin looking to reinvent himself, the girl escaping her hometown life, the charming could-be sociopath, the not-pretty girl, and so on-- the sole exception being Wyatt Huddey, the novel's central protagonist, who is anything but standard-looking. Wyatt is a slow-witted gentle giant of a young man, who suffers from a congenital deformation of the face and head known as Apert Syndrome. Years ago, Wyatt was rescued from a troubling (to say the least) family situation by a Salvation Army Captain, who set Wyatt up with a job and a new residence at the Jefferson City, Missouri Salvation Army Depot. Wyatt's ensuing life is secure and comfortable, yet lonely and unfulfilling. When an opportunity arises for him to work with children at a summer camp, Wyatt decides to risk leaving the comfort of his surroundings for the summer job in hopes of "presenting a version of himself that the children and other counselors might find agreeable."

Shortly after arriving at Kinderman Forest, Wyatt and his fellow counselors learn that the children they are to watch over are not children at all but mentally handicapped adults from the state institution. The presence of these extraordinary campers plunges Wyatt into a surreal living aesthetic as his afflicted appearance is similar to that of the mentally handicapped campers for whom he's responsible. Matters complicate further for Wyatt when he chances upon a disturbing discovery about one of his fellow counselors, the good-looking, well-liked, yet manipulative, Christopher Waterhouse. The discovery forces the timorous Wyatt into a situation where he alone can take the heroic action needed to prevent a terrible tragedy.

While The Inverted Forest may not possess the same beautifully rendered, meditative depths of Dalton's prized debut novel, Heaven Lake (Scribner 2005), it is nothing short of a blockbuster read. The story pulses with summer fun and a delicate, heart-wrenching humanity. Dalton doesn't romanticize the lives of the mentally disabled-- quite the opposite. The Inverted Forest is host to numerous subtly rendered, sensitive, yet compelling passages that will astound and befuddle most readers. Undeniably, the effective handling of the mentally handicapped in fiction is no easy task. The slightest hint of patronization and audiences will be slow to forgive. So Dalton proceeds gently, bravely, a scientist seeking truth, aware per Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, that failure to get out of the way may leave his findings colored, his credibility quacked.

It takes some time for Dalton to excavate the substance of his characters down to the molecular level, but once he accomplishes it, the disturbance he creates is that of a forest floor disappearing beneath the trees, an upwards falling into the lesser-known deeps of a summer sky. There, The Inverted Forest is home to much finely distilled dark spirit matter-- rarely glimpsed mysteries of flesh and soul, a boldly surveyed slice of human fauna too frail, too beautiful, and too sad to be untrue.

A few more notes on this book:

* The layout of the story is intrinsically interesting. The plot --though it takes a bit of set-up time-- once launched, is expertly drawn and bursts with momentum. This is one of those rare books that will make you clear your schedule and read.

* The protagonist is well-selected. Wyatt is a character most readers will be eager to care about.

* Though Dalton's sober journeys into the lives of the disabled is probably the novel's most unique feat, the "normal" characters certainly aren't spared of Dalton's unfiltered and at times remorseless insight--

"It wasn't simply a matter of being unattractive; every day they encountered less than attractive people who had wide circles of friends, who had devoted lovers or grateful wives and husbands. No, the problem was a part of who they were. They seemed always to give off a faint but steady signal that kept other people at a distance. There was something within them--a strange disability that had them lurching on the inside--that couldn't be easily named or diagnosed. It couldn't be remedied, either. They were lonesome all their lives."

[Molly McGeehin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good I then read the author’s first book, Heaven Lake

[Mary Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my kind of reading

[Angie Fehl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story starts out in the summer of 1996, though I'm not sure why the author bothered -- there was nothing overtly '90s about the storyline. I'm guessing it was done to make sense of the present day ending maybe? What with the racism and despicable behavior towards the disadvantaged, I felt this story having a more early 1960s vibe.

From the synopsis, I was under the impression that the story was mostly supposed to follow the character Wyatt Huddy but it didn't feel like he played a huge role in the storyline until the big dramatic moment near the end. But anyway, in the beginning Wyatt is a physically disfigured man in his early twenties living in the stockroom of a thrift store. His disfigurement --- the left side of his face is higher than the right, making his eyes off center by 1/2" and his nose pressed inwards a bit -- causes people to assume he has some form of mental retardation when in fact there's no such issue. Possibly a minor learning disability, but that's about the extent of it. Wyatt accepts a job working at a summer camp as a counselor. He assumes he'll be counseling young kids but comes to find out that the first two weeks of this camp's season are reserved for adult campers who are mentally & physically disabled wards of the state.

At first I thought this might be a slow burn type of novel, but in the end the whole thing struck me as a little too dull, which was made worse by the fact that I REALLY REALLY did not like the camp director. Not only did he say some gawdawful things to people but dang, that guy reeked creepy old man!

It took about 60 pages or so for the camp to really start up and then much of the novel just sounded like a boring soap opera, but one oddly leaning towards the heavily lascivious. I mean, the story really fixates on this angle. The drama of the story didn't really kick in until one of the camp employees takes advantage (sexually) of one of the campers, Wyatt finds them and confronts his co-worker and the co-worker makes up some "she was hurt and I was helping her" excuse. Directly after that moment, Part 2 of the novel starts up in 2011 explaining what ended up happening, what the long term repercussions were and a "where are they now" follow up with the major characters.

Having worked in camps for a number of years, I had high hopes for this one and sadly it just didn't quite reach those hopes. The camp environment was there but what could have been a touching, poignant story just turned out to be an off-putting combination of ick and WTF. My main problem with this one though is that the plot seemed to be made up of a bunch of half-thoughts -- the relationship with the nurse, how'd that escalate to that level seemingly out of nowhere; what ended up happening that night when everything changed, what made him snap to that level? ... so many things not really clearly explained, the reader is just expected to "get it" I guess, but sorry, I felt a distinct lack of backstory on so many of these characters.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Usually, things and people are best known from the inside out. Outward appearances can lie or, at the least, bring misdirection.

The characters in John Dalton's "The Inverted Forest" during a life-changing two weeks at a 1996 summer camp in rural Missouri, reveal their essences, for better and for worse.

Shortly before a summer session is to begin, elderly camp director Schuller Kindermann is startled by what his young counselors are up to at Kindermann Forest Summer Camp. Kindermann discovers the vast majority of his counselors — all but three — doing some late-night skinny-dipping at the camp swimming pool. Aghast, Kindermann fires everyone involved. Well, everyone but one: Harriet Foster, the camp nurse, a black woman with a young son. This leaves Kindermann in a quandary. Through his connections, he quickly fills the jobs, some with candidates rejected initially. He does not tell the newcomers this: The first two-week session's campers are severely developmentally disabled adults, not "normal" children.

One of the new counselors might, physically, pass for one of these campers. Wyatt Huddy has Apert syndrome. Wyatt's his face is startlingly off-kilter; he is not mentally challenged like some with the syndrome, but he's relatively unimaginative and simple. Wyatt and Harriet are at the heart — and are the hearts of — this novel.

Dalton, whose fine debut novel "Heaven Lake" was such a nice surprise, skillfully navigates this world as overwhelmed counselors try to manage the campers, the campers behave in their own often-chaotic ways, and relationships form that will have effects far beyond a single summer.

Dalton takes time to mold even characters who won't have a lot of face time, and he gives us quick, character-revealing back stories of several people. It's quite remarkable, really, the care he takes. He cares, so we do. Dalton is invested in every detail. He also isn't afraid of messiness. These aren't just feel-good, PC developmentally disabled people at the camp. It ain't the movie "Awakenings." Can a book be tender and brutal at the same time? I think so. One group of male campers thoroughly disgusts a counselor with what they are up to, off by themselves in a cabin in the early hours.

After weighing two people's stories, Kindermann makes a staffing decision that will have far-reaching effects. And this leads to a point at which "The Inverted Forest" trods a path some readers might not relish going down. I had that reaction to the tragic consequences at first. Dalton's sure hands put me at ease. About a third of the novel takes place in the present (2011) as two characters deal with the ongoing aftermath of what happened on a road near Kindermann Forest Summer Camp.

"The Inverted Forest" (3.5 stars; and check out that beautiful trade paperback cover) manages to be both moving and unsentimental, its low-key story probing the depths of human deception and human understanding.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago I read John Dalton’s debut Heaven Lake, which I loved, so was excited to read this one (plus it had great reviews). This book was stark, yet stunning, and will stay with me a long time. It’s deceptive almost. It reads quietly, in a literary fashion, and then about halfway in you realize you’re holding your breath. At one point I was walking and reading this book (in a public area!), which is something I never do. I literally could not put it down, not a phrase I use lightly, if ever.

Kindermann Forest Summer Camp fires all its staff days before the campers arrive and so enter a ragtag crew of so-called counselors. The ante is upped as the first two weeks of camp is reserved for patients from the state mental hospital. Here’s the part where I had to keep checking dates. This was contemporary fiction, right? If so why such prodigious use of the word “retarded” when referring to these campers? Is that just how it’s done in certain parts of the United States? A little confusing at first.

This is told in multiple viewpoints: counselor Wyatt whose severe physical deformities result in him being mistaken for a camper, nurse Harriet, an asexual camp director, the lifeguard, among others. The characters in this are phenomenal, Wyatt and Harriet being my favorites but they’re all expertly drawn, even the horrible people. About midway through Something Happens and the already good book veers off in a truly fascinating direction. Loved this. Loved it.

This book it is not for everyone. There are some truly horrific parts, parts told with such delicacy they are all the more emotionally affecting (see above reference to breath-holding). Read the description, read the reviews, and proceed with caution.

[Jann Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't judge a book by its cover.

A person who is lovely on the outside is not automatically lovely on the inside.

******

Wyatt Huddy has Apert Syndrome, which affects the shape of his head and facial features. Many, including Wyatt, feel that he also has diminished intelligence. He lives in a room at the Salvation Army, having been rescued from a horrible home situation by two kind men who gave him a job there and place to live.

In 1996, Wyatt is given the opportunity to be a counselor at a summer camp when most of the regular counselors are fired two days before camp begins. Thinking he will be working with children, Wyatt is surprised to find that the first two weeks of camp belong to 104 residents of the state hospital. Physically, Wyatt looks as if he could belong to this group of campers, yet he is a counselor, in charge of three of the campers.

The counselors and campers begin to reveal themselves through their interactions. Wyatt is called upon to prevent a tragedy, and his actions have a far reaching ripple effect.

I highly recommend this book. My slight review does not do it justice. It is well written and at times, heart wrenching. I would give it a 4.5 if that rating were allowed.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked Dalton's first novel "Heaven Lake", so I was looking forward to his second book. When I read the front flap of the book with the description, I thought it sounded like a strange setting and story. And now I can report it was. The story takes place at a summer camp in Missouri. The camp director fires the staff right before the camp opens and has to quickly hire a new staff, and neither is prepared for the season. While the camp is for children, unbenownst to the new staff, the first two weeks the camp hosts severely developmentally disabled adults. I was literally halfway throught the book until I figured out where the story was going. Which did give a subtle sense of suspense because I knew something had to happen at some point. Dalton spends alot of time on character development, which I always appreciate, but I felt some characters needed more and some characters received too much for their part in the overall story. He does have a way of really seeing into the soul of a character though. But I'm not sure I really enjoyed the story. I think the book was thought-provoking about many of the challenges the characters Wyatt and Harriet faced, and how it all wrapped up wasn't what I expected. I just didn't get involved enough with the summer camp angle.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first book by this author and it was surprisingly good. It's about a summer camp in Missouri. It begins with all the counselors getting fired before the first campers arrive, because they had a wild naked pool party with alcohol and craziness. The camp director hires in a rush, a new crew of counselors. Before any children arrive, they have a group of mentally disabled adults attend the camp for two weeks. The story rolls out from there. The character development is very good and the story is told bit by bit. I found myself wanting to know more about each character, but the author only tells you enough to know the current situation. I now want to read this author's first book "Heaven Lake". This was an surprising book, with interesting themes and suspense. This was not what I was expecting. It had a good ending and I would recommend this book, but it has some strange twists and turns. One reviewer said the prose is is exciting, tender and unnervingly candid all at once, which I agree.

[EThayer3 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book. A summer camp, a couple nights before opening for the season the director has to fire most of the staff for skinny dipping. New group of counselors hired asap, unbeknowst to them the first weeek is for adult campers with challenging mental disabilities (I hope I'm using a politacally correct term). One of the counselors, while not mentally challenged, does have a disability that at first glance could put him in this category.

The plot was good and kept me going but something seemed to be missing for me, in fact it seems there were a lot of missing pieces. For instance, there were 104 campers and 4 campers per counselor but there were only 15 counselors. The math just doesn't work out. The ending, which takes place many years later, was totally weird and didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the book.

To me it seems like the author tried to write a fast book and therefore left a lot of important stuff out. Can't quite decide if I should give this two or three stars. I'll go with two because I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Rebekah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know what I was thinking when I went into this book--fun, summer camp memories; juicy camp gossip--but it certainly wasn't what I got. It took over 100 pages for me to get engaged in the story, and the only reason I kept going was because the reviews I'd seen suggested it was a really moving and engaging story. I figured it had to get better. By page 150 I realized I was mostly skimming, reading only a couple of words of each sentence. I forced myself to focus and engage in the story, but I never quite got there. The "terrible tragedy" which the jacket refers to is, indeed, a terrible tragedy. In fact, it made me sick to my stomach to read. Even then, I found myself caring very little about most of the characters and couldn't even remember who many of them were when Dalton brought us from 1996 to 2011 for a "where are they now."

All in all, I found this to be a disjointed and scattered account of two weeks of camp life.

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are beautiful things in this book and horrible things. Dalton does a wonderful job of hinting where another writer might force your nose into a scene. It could feel like he's too lightly tracing the story, but instead, it asks the reader to understand what is unsaid. And there's a lot unsaid.

The story line follows people at a summer camp in 1996, though by the feel of it, it could be 1966. That seems right, since the camp is sort of timeless. The camp director finds his entire staff of counselors skinny dipping a few days before camp starts. He fires them all and has to quickly find replacements. The new people come in and are thrown, with no warning or training, into caring for 103 campers from a state mental institution. They make it through, but there are casualties. Then the story jumps to 2011 and we see the repercussions of that summer in a few of the characters' lives.

I would have liked to see more of Wyatt in the second part of the story.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never did figure out why the book was called the inverted forest. It does begin at a summer camp but it ends in a more urban setting. It is the story of a young man with a birth disorder that has left him looking retarded but he isn't. When the 1st group of campers turns out to be folks from the mental institution, he copes well. However, when sent to deal with the counselor in charge of life guarding who appears to be heading towards taking advantage of a female, Wyatt Huddy goes overboard and kills the lefe guard. The story progresses so that we know he spent time in jail and then through the help of the woman who had been the camp nurse, time in a cottage for the mentally ill. It is her guilt that helps him have a slightly better life. I did not enjoy the darkness of the story; I am glad my recollections of being a camp counselor are happy ones.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the first 90 pages or so, I marveled at how engaged I was in this novel with no apparent plot or actual character development. Seriously, I was interested. It starts to coalesce into something though by the end of the book's first part, which is about 65-70% through. The second part, then, feels almost like an extended denouement. One of the best points in the novel for me is the Marcy Bittman storyline that takes place in 2011 in the book's second part. I also found interesting the case that's made for Wyatt and Harriet's experience of the night of the event. I was not particularly satisfied with the ending, but by that point, I'm not sure that it much mattered what happened. So, in the end, it fizzles, I think, and that diminishes the experience of the book for me from four stars to three. I will probably read his other novel though.