In the Lake of the Woods: Chapter 28 Summary & Analysis

It is 7 am and John is riding in Claude’s boat, the day after Claude told him about Lux’s plan to search the cottage grounds. He is about three miles away from the cottage, headed north. By mid-morning, he’s crossed into Canadian waters. He has about 250 miles left to go before he runs out of gasoline. By noon, he has reached a series of small channels that are difficult to navigate.

As he rides north, John remembers talking to Kathy about his actions at Thuan Yen. He told her “everything he could tell,” though the narrator doesn’t recount exactly what this means. In his boat, John thinks that he doesn’t consider himself an evil man at all, and that he couldn’t explain everything that had happened in Vietnam. He has always wanted to be good, almost as if he has a disease that forced him to desire goodness. He cries out, “Kath!” but there is no answer.

In the evening, John drives the boat to land and makes a small fire, where he eats a sandwich and reads the note Claude left him in the envelope. Claude writes that he doesn’t blame John for anything he’s done—he sees John as being sucked down into a funnel. Claude offers his theory of what happened—Kathy went out in her boat and got lost. He notes that there is a radio in John’s boat, set to “the right frequency.” He advises John to head to Canada, suggesting that it’s easy to “evaporate” and start over again. John drinks vodka, and thinks that Claude is mostly right about Kathy. Kathy probably had an accident. Nevertheless, he thinks, he is responsible for making Kathy’s life miserable with deception and manipulation in place of real love. In short, he is guilty of being Sorcerer.

John goes to asleep. Late at night he wakes up—it’s raining. He says, “Well, Kath?” but again there is no reply. At dawn, he returns to his boat and drives north. He passes by a chain of islands that are covered in snow, and look like a Christmas card. He drinks vodka and yells Kath’s name. In the cold air, John sometimes feels as if he’s back in Thuan Yen.

At the end of the day, John turns on the radio in the boat and speaks into it. Claude’s voice answers. Claude says that Lux and Vincent are monitoring the radio, and possibly listening right now. He adds that police are searching the cottage grounds; John replies that they won’t find anything, and assures Claude that he didn’t kill or hurt his wife. Claude laughs and says that he’ll keep it between John and himself. He reiterates that Canada isn’t a bad place to go, but John doesn’t respond. He turns the radio off.

For the rest of the day and into the night, John eats, drinks, and feels miserable in the cold. He thinks that misery is the point, but can’t explain to himself what this means. Perhaps the point is for John to feel the same pain and sadness that Kathy felt.

John thinks about his memories. He can’t stop thinking about Thuan Yen. Similarly, his memories of his father’s death keep replaying in his mind. He thinks that the villagers in Vietnam are never fully dead, since they keep dying over and over again. Late in the night, John drinks vodka, turns on the radio, and voices all of these thoughts. He also says that choice is a myth. People don’t choose what they do, they just submit to the laws of the universe—thus, people “fall in love,” submitting to the laws of gravity.

John continues to drunkenly speak into his radio. He conducts a “talk show” with himself, noting that Kathy was “what I had,” but adding that she used to chase him around the house with a squirt gun. He says that he fell in love with Kathy, and that she was the girl of his dreams. He asks, rhetorically, if others wouldn’t “tell a fib or two” in a similar situation.

At 6:30 am, John throws his radio in the water and continues on through the water.