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The Inverted Forest

3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 314 ratings · 62 reviews

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...more 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.(less)

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published July 19th 2011 by Scribner

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Jul 23, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, august-read-list

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 yo...more 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.’”

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Jul 09, 2011 Shellie (Layers of Thought) rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those wanting a powerful contemporary novel

Shelves: country-us, element-disabilties-mental-illness, favorites, genre-general-fiction-literature, blog-reviews, element-coming-of-age, genre-mystery-thriller-true-crime, read-in-2011, element-strong-or-dark-female-chara

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 summ...more 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.(less)

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Aug 17, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, usa-contemporary, read-2011

The novels that stir your passions, either in disgust or contempt or in delight and amazement, are the easiest to review. It's those in the middle ground- the *meh* reads- that prove the most difficult to comment on, if only because you have to rouse the will and the words to write.

The Inverted Forest was such a read for me. It did not disappoint, per se, but neither did it inspire. The subject matter was original, profound, disturbing, and fascinating. Wyatt Huddy, a young man suffering from a...more The novels that stir your passions, either in disgust or contempt or in delight and amazement, are the easiest to review. It's those in the middle ground- the *meh* reads- that prove the most difficult to comment on, if only because you have to rouse the will and the words to write.

The Inverted Forest was such a read for me. It did not disappoint, per se, but neither did it inspire. The subject matter was original, profound, disturbing, and fascinating. Wyatt Huddy, a young man suffering from a rare genetic condition, a shocking physical appearance, and the public perception that he is retarded as well as disfigured, is selected as a youth camp counselor at an idyllic resort in the Ozarks. The counselors, all young people not long out of their teens, assemble at the camp in an early summer in the late 90's. The counselors bound with physical and sexual energy. One counselor in particular stands out. He is the lifeguard, a beautiful, enigmatic, and ultimately sinister creature.

These counselors learn soon after arriving that their first two weeks will be spent minding a group of adults from the state mental institution. Having spent a summer working at a camp for adults with severe developmental disabilities, I can attest to the strength of Dalton's honest, humanizing, sweet, and uncomfortable portrayal of the campers. It is far and away the highlight of this novel- he does not spare a bowel movement, a touch, a slap, an affect that is annoying and hilarious- even in the privacy of your own thoughts you will feel shame and guilt when you laugh and cringe at the behavior of campers and counselors alike.

Something wretched occurs in the final days of the two week session, which I will not reveal. The last quarter of the book takes place fifteen years later, i.e., in the present day, as two of the camp employees seek to discover the truth of and to make amends for the tragedy that took place so many years before.

All of this would make for an amazing story. But it just doesn't. Although this story takes place in the late 1990's, the behavior of the camp employees feels anachronistic, out-of-place- not at all of the time of Dalton's setting. Time and space are wasted at the end as an irrelevant character enters the main frame of the story, contributing a disjointed and slightly hysterical coda to the principal narrative.

The plot is like a Joyce Carol Oates over-the-top emotofest. In contrast, Dalton's writing style is somnambulistic. His characters' points-of-view are detached, his tone dull and simplistic. The most intriguing and insightful character, the camp nurse, keeps the story on a believable keel until the flash-forward at the end. Then the novel takes an inexplicable turn that left me feeling manipulated and creeped out.

As I complete this review, I see that this book did stir a reaction well beyond *meh*. But I cannot get behind a strong recommendation, as both substance and style were significant let-downs.

(less)

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Mary Ann I don't understand your criteria for 3 stars. I love your reviews. You've helped me weed out books from my 'to read' list and added new ones that I've...more
Aug 19, 2011 07:01am

Julie Hi Mary Ann,

Thank you! I'm humbled and delighted that anyone would use my reviews to make reading choices!

I work in the wine industry and I abhor the...more
Aug 20, 2011 09:17am

Jan 15, 2012 EThayer3 rated it 2 of 5 stars

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...more

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Jan 12, 2012 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 fir...more

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Sep 19, 2011 Shaun rated it 4 of 5 stars

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...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Jann Barber rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 c...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

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...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, 2013

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.

Ki...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more 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.

(less)

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Aug 05, 2011 Jeanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction

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 cou...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 en...more

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Aug 01, 2011 Aaron rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 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...more 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.(less)

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Jul 25, 2011 Jennyreadsexcessively rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Inverted Forest is an interesting, original story about the goings-on at a summer camp for disabled adults. The camp's owner has to make some quick decisions about hiring counselor replacements after feeling compelled to let the previous staff go due to an unauthorized nighttime skinny dip. But are the new counselors qualified to care for the demands of the mentally retarded wards of the state hospital? And most compelling is the lead character of Wyatt Huddy, who was born with the congenita...more

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Dec 08, 2011 Beth rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 an...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Tom Dvorske rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: lit

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 tha...more

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Oct 19, 2011 Anne Slater rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 fi...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Charlotte rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: advanced-readers-copy, nook

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 c...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Bryan Basamanowicz rated it 5 of 5 stars

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, wi...more 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." (less)

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Aug 17, 2011 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

Days before Kindermann Forest Summer Camp is set to open, the director discovers his counselors drinking alcohol and skinny-dipping, fires all of them, and must hurry to find replacements before the first wave of campers arrives.

One of those replacements is Wyatt, a young man with a genetic disfigurement; a gentle giant deeply concerned both that others will interpret his physical appearance as indicative of a mental disability, and that it actually is. Surprisingly when the campers arrive they...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Lisa Bertagnoli rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm sure this is a good book. It just wasn't for me. The story was overly Gothic and I found the writing overly formal, perhaps a bit viscous, and definitely stilted in a way that, to my ear, interfered with the story. The story itself was, as mentioned, Gothic, only faintly plausible and in parts, shocking but to no end - I can't imagine any morality tale, life lesson or larger truth emanating from his pages. All that said, the writer teaches creative writing and literary behemoth ICM represent...more

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Aug 26, 2011 Rebekah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, magazine-recommended

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, bu...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Connie rated it 1 of 5 stars

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 unti...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Paula Hebert rated it 2 of 5 stars

the first two weeks of a summer camp are set aside for state patients; the mentally deficient, medicated lost souls who, through no fault of their own, need supervision and care, and for these two weeks of the year, are exposed to woods and water, and are overseen by camp counselors. but this one year a young woman is molested, and a camp counselor is murdered. all this is revisited and the details revealed, as the story progresses. its an okay story, kind of plodding, I really wouldn't recomme...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Djrmel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: z2011-read, contemporary, fiction

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 pr...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Debi rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Inverted Forest, by John Dalton is many things at once: a crime story, a case-study of the grotesque, a reportorial account what could be true. At first, I was uncertain about which details would matter. As it turns out, many seemingly innocuous descriptions, conversations, and events contribute to the overall plot and theme.

While reading this story, my sense of dread built to a woeful pitch before I figured out what inevitability was going to occur. This well-written book and its character...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Ted rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a beautiful novel by St. Louis author John Dalton. It tells the story of Wyatt Huddy, a young man with a disfigured face (due to Apert's syndrome) and what transpires when he is hired as a camp counselor for mentally handicapped adults in rural Missouri. Suffice it to say that a lot happens. Dalton's work reminds of another favorite midwestern author, Kent Haruf. If there's such a thing as a midwestern novel, this is a shining example.

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Sep 17, 2011 Butch rated it 3 of 5 stars

I spent 10 years working with institutionalized individuals and found this book to be well informed regarding this population. I enjoyed the juxtaposing of a character (who only appears to be handicapped) within this population, but as a counselor instead of a client. I especially recommend this story to anyone who has spent any time working in the mental health field.

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Mar 16, 2012 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Setting is in the Ozarks of Missouri which was my reason for reading it having moved to MO 4 years ago. Smartly written and mostly good until the very end where the ending seemed a little contrived. Characters not always well developed and a bit stereotypical, but then stereotypes exist for a reason.

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Sep 13, 2011 Hdmsisk rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was an exceptional book. The writing was of the highest quality with spot-on descriptions. The characters were real and complex yet interesting. The plot was engaging and unusual. Most importantly, the story was well told and upon completion I was glad that I had read this book.

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About John Dalton

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...more

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