It snuck up on me, like one of those nature documentaries where the lion stalks the gazelle.” Teen emotions are one thing, but the language we use to articulate them, and the power dynamics they create, are another.
“For a while, I didn’t even notice her … then suddenly I couldn’t stop noticing her. It’s revealed that he has been in love with Tracie.
Tom’s investigation brings him to his own son, Marty. As the novel progresses we are given more insight into Sean’s motivations – perhaps he’s the most real, sympathetic character in the novel, someone many readers might be able to identify with.Īside from being a fast-paced and engagingly written story, Wild Place’s strength lies with White’s reflections on masculinity and violence. He’s got a tattoo of a pentagram, a sign of the devil. He smokes, dresses in all black, treats his mother terribly, and listens to heavy metal. Sean, the young man who Tom suspects may be behind Tracie’s disappearance, is at first crudely drawn. Without giving anything away about the end of Wild Place, not enough was made of how Tom’s nervous state relates to the social structures that enable domestic violence and sexual abuse to take place, and be covered up. While he is by far the most realised character in a book mostly populated by two-dimensional stereotypes, I found that key aspects of Tom’s personality, such as his compulsive twitching – for which he was mercilessly bullied in school – in the end come to very little. Withholding Tom’s true motive for most of the narrative, White offers perhaps the most biting social critique contained in Wild Place – problematic gender dynamics and the insidious nature of toxic masculinity. Tom is an interesting choice for the detective. Families are struggling: teenagers will be teenagers, and adults are only just managing to cope with the demands of everyday life. As he discovers more about Tracie and the other residents of Camp Hill, we see that – unsurprisingly – all is not as rosy as it might seem. Tom Witter, a lifelong resident of Camp Hill and teacher at the local high school, becomes obsessed with solving the riddle of her disappearance.