A Walk in the Woods

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
(Stephen King, 1999)

3.5 Stars

Certain writers have always served me as comfort food. Storytellers that I know I can turn to in times of boredom and need. Gerald Durrell and Nick Hornby are often top of the list, but for sheer story-telling power and character creation, the number one literary soul food for this world traveller is always that purveyor of the supernatural, Mr. Stephen King.

With a painfully restricting luggage allowance, the majority of King’s tomes remain unloved on my bookshelves back home. Fortunately, however, a few tales remain in the realms of less than an epic, and thus can sit comfortably in ones hand luggage.

One of such easy-readers is ‘99’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, a cautionary tale of the dangers of peeing in the woods. Told through the eyes of young heroine Trisha, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a tense and enthralling yarn, chronicling the rapid decline from home comforts to utter isolation in the Appalachian wilderness.

King’s talent for capturing the personality of a young hero resounds throughout this tale, as we watch Trish go from confident and cocky to finding even the smallest hope to hang on to in her survival. Her devastation upon finding her walkman batteries dead, and as such her final lifeline lost, is one of King’s most powerful images since Coffey’s final walk in The Green Mile.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing strengths of Tom Gordon, however, is not in King’s inimitable writing, but in its detachment from his other works; sure, there is mention of that King staple, Castle Rock, but the lack of supernatural theme is a delightful respite. Yes, there is the “God of the Lost”, but one cannot help but think that this mysterious stalker is no more than the terrified delusion of a young girl lost in the woods. Her final confrontation, when the figure turns out to be no more than a bear, killed by a simple bullet, accentuates this fully, showing King is not simply a horror writer, but truly a master novelist.

Short, sweet, and impossible to put down, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is classic King.