The Lake of the Woods Study Guide

Characters

John Wade – The main character of the story. He is a Minnesota politician who lost a recent election for a seat in the Senate. Previously, he had been the Lieutenant Governor, and had been on the state senate of Minnesota. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and is clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Kathy Wade – John’s wife. She was the admissions director for the University of Minnesota. Kathy and John met in c0llege, and despite his odd behavior during their youth, she married him anyway. She has a sister named Patricia Hood. The story revolves around her sudden disappearance. It is known that she has cheated on John twice during their relationship.

Tony Carbo – John’s campaign manager. He is a small, overweight man who comes off as someone with no morality and who is a ruthless politician. John hired him to run his campaign for the Senate. Early on, Tony Carbo asked John if there was anything secret in his past that could hurt him, and John told him that there was nothing that could be used against him.

John’s Father – John loved his father despite a tremendous amount of emotional abuse. His father appeared to be a really nice guy to most people, but he was an angry alcoholic. John’s father taunted him about his weight and used to call him Jiggling John. Eventually, he hanged himself in the garage. This was a traumatizing event for John.

Richard Thinbill – An American Indian, and one of John’s friends from Vietnam. He may have been the one to reveal John’s Vietnam secret.

Eleanor Wade – John’s mother. She is one of the witnesses who explains what John’s father was actually like.

Patricia Hood – Kathy’s sister. She appears later in the story. It is apparent that Kathy has told her everything about John, as she clearly has some anger directed towards him.

The Rasmussens – Friends of John Wade, they are an old couple who own the cabin in the Lake of the Woods.

Arthur J. Lux – A local sheriff in the Lake of the Woods. He is the one who is investigating Kathy’s disappearance. He is a practical man who does not let his emotions get in the way of his investigation.

Vinny Pearson – Deputy Sheriff in the Lake of the Woods. He is a Vietnam veteran, and does not like John. He believes that John killed his wife.

Lt. William Calley – He was the leader of John’s platoon during his first tour of Vietnam. This is the infamous Calley who was responsible for the My Lai massacre.

Chapter 1 – How Unhappy They Were

  1. Shortly after the election, John and Kathy stay at the Lake of the Woods. They are taking time to reorganize their lives since John’s defeat in the election was a crushing one which ruined his political career.
  2. They spend a few nights fantasizing about things that they could do now that John no longer is pursuing a political career. Kathy dreams about visiting Verona and having children.
  3. We discover that John is having emotional issues, as he repeatedly uses the phrase ‘Kill Jesus’ because it is the worst thing he can think to say.

Chapter 2 – Evidence (1)

  1. This chapter lists various objects that might be connected to Kathy’s disappearance: Iron Teakettle, a small boat with an Evinrude engine, Kathy’s missing person’s report, decomposed plants, and the boathouse.
  2. Kathy’s missing person’s report indicates that she had an abortion when she was 34 years old. It is quite apparent (since she wants to have children) that John coerced her into having it.
  3. The chapter contains the election results which demonstrate how badly John was defeated. He had a 58% majority of the public’s opinion in July, and only 21% a month later. A revelation destroyed his chances for election.

Chapter 3 - The Nature of Loss

  1. John’s father killed himself when John was 14 years old.
  2. At the funeral, John became inconsolable. He had homicidal thoughts and imagined killing people at the funeral. Apparently, he was uncontrollably screaming.
  3. John began imagining that his father was alive. However, in his daydreams/imaginings, his father was nice to him.

Chapter 4 – What He Remembered

  1. While relaxing at the lake house, Kathy tried to talk to John several times about his past, and cheer him up, but John refused to cooperate with her.
  2. They drove into town to pick up mail and some supplies. At the local mini-mart, Kathy became very angry at John for becoming upset at her attempt to liven up the mood.
  3. In the evening, John almost opened up about what occurred in Vietnam, but did not.

Chapter 5 – Hypothesis (1)

  1. The first hypothesis is that Kathy was having an affair, and later that night, her lover came to pick her up. Kathy leaves with him, never to return.

Chapter 6 – Evidence (2)

  1. We learn that John’s nickname in Vietnam was ‘Sorcerer’.
  2. Other physical items are introduced: A picture of young John as a magician, and a list of some of his magician’s tricks.
  3. This chapter examines several psychological angles. For example, it talks about how a woman copes when she is trapped in an unhappy relationship, and it explains how combat can cause post-traumatic stress disorder.
  4. The chapter also includes quotes from presidential biographies/autobiographies, all indicating how many politicians are obsessed with being loved by others.

Chapter 7 – The Nature of Marriage

  1. We learn that John’s hobby when he was a child, was to perform magic tricks.
  2. John met Kathy in college. At the time, he was a Senior and she was a Freshman. Even at that age, they were already talking about marriage.
  3. In college, John began spying on Kathy. He would follow her daily routine, and try to observe her without being seen. The way it is described in the book, it seems that John was addicted to spying on Kathy.
  4. At one p0int in their youth, Kathy questioned John’s motives for wanting to become a politician. Although John had his entire plan mapped out, he was unable to give a good reason for why he was doing it in the first place. Kathy felt that it was manipulative.
  5. John volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War. Kathy was not happy with this, as she felt that this was all part of his political plan.
  6. While in Vietnam, he became known as ‘Sorcerer’ since he would perform magic tricks for his fellow soldiers. Eventually, the men became superstitious and began to treat him as if he really did have supernatural power.
  7. When he brags to Kathy about how his reputation for sorcery is increasing in his platoon, Kathy begins to get nervous and warns him that she finds his behavior disturbing.
  8. His despair causes him to become murderously angry, and at one point, he kills a sniper, by using his techniques to appear behind him. His platoon is very impressed by this.
  9. When John returns from the war, he chooses to spy on Kathy before letting her know that he has returned home. After two days of watching her, he discovers that she was cheating on him.
  10. When John and Kathy married, it initially went very well. Everything appeared to be working well, and they moved into an apartment together.

Chapter 8 – How the Night Passed

  1. Late at night, while thinking about how badly he was defeated in the election, John begins to mutter ‘Kill Jesus’ again. While in this state, he boils water in the teakettle and then uses the boiling water to kill plants in the cabin.

Chapter 9 – Hypothesis (2)

  1. In the second hypothesis, Kathy wakes up at night and witnesses John’s ramblings and destruction of the household plants. Thoroughly scared by what she sees, she runs away into the night to an uncertain fate.

Chapter 10 – The Nature of Love

  1. There is a flashback to the past, six years after John and Kathy married, and we see that they still have the same physical and emotional passion for each other.
  2. There is a flashback to their time in college where Kathy and John used to play a game called ‘Dare You’, where they would do risky things to excite each other.
  3. There is a flashback to Vietnam where John saw two snakes swallowing each other and wrote a letter to Kathy saying that the snakes were representations of their love for each other.
  4. There is a flashback to his youth where he used to go shopping at Karra’s Magic Shop. The owner was a red-haired woman he called the Carrot Lady.
  5. There is a flashback to when he was in a delusional state in Vietnam and accidentally killed one of his own men, PFC Weatherby.
  6. There is a flashback where John’s platoon took villagers to a beach to watch him perform a magic show. For the finale, John got on a radio and called in artillery to destroy the village.
  7. There is a flashback to his childhood, where we see that John’s father was popular, as he seemed to be a cool person to people who did not know him.
  8. John pretended that the Viet Cong shot and killed PFC Weatherby.
  9. There is a flashback to a rare time where his father was being nice and took him to the magic shop to buy a present. That was when John bought the guillotine of death.
  10. Apparently John continued to spy on Kathy, even after he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. However, we are given a clue that indicates Kathy became aware of the spying.
  11. At one point in the past, it appeared that he might to confess some of what happened in Vietnam to Kathy, but she didn’t want to talk about it at that time.
  12. There is a flashback to John having panic attacks while asleep and Kathy confronting him about his behavior.

Chapter 11 – What He Did Next

  1. The day after John has the bad night, he wakes up at noon to discover that Kathy is missing.
  2. As the day goes on, John rotates through several activities. First he starts cleaning the house, then he starts to get drunk. Later, after he becomes really worried, he begins to search for Kathy.
  3. Eventually, he runs out of places to look, and goes to the dock. There he discovers that the boat with the Evinrude engine is missing.
  4. With no place else to go, he drives over to the Rasmussen cottage, and asks them for help.
  5. Claude drives John back to the residence. While there, Claude asks John some pointed questions such as: Why did he leave the phone unhooked, because it would have prevented Kathy from calling him if she had access to a phone. He also asks about the plants.

Chapter 12 – Evidence (3)

  1. Kathy’s sister (Patricia) reveals in her comments that she was quite aware of John’s idiosyncrasies, such as his nickname of sorcerer and the terrible things he says in his sleep.
  2. We also learn that Kathy knew that John was spying on her.
  3. We find out more information about John’s father and how his alcoholism was so bad that he once checked into a rehab clinic.
  4. There are a few quotes from/about politicians who faced emotional trauma from their defeats in elections.

Chapter 13 – The Nature of the Beast

  1. This chapter reveals the secret which caused John to lose the election. Apparently he was a participant in the My Lai massacre.
  2. The chain of events began when quite a few members of John’s platoon were killed by booby traps and land mines. They became very frustrated from being killed by an enemy that they never saw.
  3. The chapter details John’s experiences at My Lai, it appears that he was in a delusional state from the very start of the event. He wandered around aimlessly for quite a while. Eventually, he winds up shooting an old man with a hoe (because he thought it was a rifle). Later he accidentally falls into a ditch filled with dozens of dead Vietnamese and has a panic attack. When one of his fellow soldiers approaches him (PFC Weatherby), John shoots and kills him.

Chapter 14 – Hypothesis (3)

  1. The hypothesis in this chapter is that Kathy decided to take the lakehouse boat for a ride. While out on the lake in the early morning, Kathy may have crashed the boat, fallen into the water and drowned.
  2. In this hypothesis, the author has Kathy thinking about how she and John are going to solve their marital problems. In the end, she believes that they should confess everything to each other.
  3. At this point we learn that Kathy was happy that John lost the election because she was sick of all of the politics.

Chapter 15 – What the Questions Were

  1. The local deputies arrive at the Rasmussen cottage to question John about Kathy’s disappearance. The local sheriff’s name is Arthur Lux. His deputy is a Vietnam veteran, Vinny Pearson, who served in the Marines during the war.
  2. Sheriff Lux tells John that they are checking the cabins, woods and lake, and that they will be using planes and boats to search for his wife.
  3. Sheriff Lux asks John a series of questions, including:
  1. When did Kathy disappear? (John says that he was asleep from midnight to noon, so there is a 12-hour window.)
  2. He asks how John somehow did not hear Kathy leave in the boat since Evinrude engines are terribly noisy.
  3. He asks John why the phone was under the sink and why the plants were burned.
  4. He asks John whether he was drunk.
  5. He asks John if he was in a fight with Kathy.
  1. During the interrogation, it becomes very clear that Vinny Pearson does not like John and believes that he murdered Kathy.
  2. John finally falls asleep and wakes up at 5:30 pm the next day. He calls Kathy’s sister, Patricia. She tells John that she is coming up to the lake.
  3. John runs over the previous night’s events in his head, and remembers that at one point, he was wading around in the lake, completely naked.
  4. He has a conversation with the Rasmussens and asks them if they think he killed his wife, and they tell him that they do NOT suspect him.

Chapter 16 – Evidence (4)

  1. This chapter contains a lot of testimony from the Court Martial trials caused by the My Lai massacre. It should be noted that the quotes from the non-fictional characters is completely true and accurate.
  2. During his court-martial trial Lt. Calley explained how he killed civilians, particularly women and children, because he felt that they qualified as combatants.
  3. There is similar testimony from other real-life soldiers such as Conti, Meadlo, and other soldiers present at the massacre.
  4. The one fictional character who is quoted is Richard Thinbill, who complains about the flies.
  5. The chapter quotes the Geneva Rules of War, which state that a soldier is responsible for their own behavior, and cannot use the excuse that they were just following orders. It mentions that non-combatants (including enemies who surrender) are to be treated in a humane manner.
  6. John Wade’s bag of tricks is revealed to contain his medals from the war, and also memorabilia of his father (including an empty vodka bottle).
  7. There are also a few passages that explain the behavior of people who are about to be massacred by showing quotes from General Custer’s men.
  8. At the end of the chapter, we are given details of the real-life massacre at My Lai:
  1. The actual name of the village is Thuan Yen.
  2. Estimates of the Vietnamese killed at My Lai range from 200 to 500 people.
  3. The narrator tells the audience that the ditch where the bodies were dumped is still there.