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John Herman Wade
The wife of John Wade, whose mysterious disappearance while she and her husband are at Lake of the Woods is the subject of the novel. Kathy first meets John while they’re both college students, and stays in touch with John during his time as a soldier in Vietnam. Throughout the book, we hear various analyses of Kathy and her relationship with John from a variety of sources. One common observation about Kathy is that she loves John, and considers it her duty to take care of him after he returns home from Vietnam, traumatized by the war. It’s often implied that Kathy enjoys John’s deception and manipulation, whereas other people find it frightening. When John embarks on a career as a politician, Kathy works in the admissions department of the University of Minnesota, but finds her duties as a politician’s wife to be irritating. It’s left largely up to reader how to interpret Kathy—whether, for instance, we should see her as a deceptive, unfaithful wife, or a warm, loving woman who never gave up on John even after evidence of his wrongdoing came to light. Further, it is never made clear whether she was murdered or purposely ran away and disappeared.
Kathleen “Kathy” Terese Wade Quotes in In the Lake of the Woods
The In the Lake of the Woods quotes below are all either spoken by Kathleen “Kathy” Terese Wade or refer to Kathleen “Kathy” Terese Wade. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 10
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They would live in perfect knowledge, all things visible, all things invisible, no wires or strings, just that large dark world where one plus one would always come to zero.
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Chapter 18
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Humming to herself, Kathy adjusted the tiller and began planning a dinner menu, two big steaks and salad and cold beer, imagining how she’d describe everything that was happening out here. Get some sympathy for herself. Get his attention for a change.
The idea gave her comfort. She could almost picture a happy ending.
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Chapter 22
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All you could do, he’d said, was open yourself up like a window and wait for fortune to blow in. And then they’d talked about stuck windows. Tony suggested that she unstick herself. So she’d shrugged and said she had tried it once but the unsticking hadn’t gone well.
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Chapter 29
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And here in a corner of John Wade’s imagination, where things neither live nor die, Kathy stares up at him from beneath the surface of the silvered lake. Her eyes are brilliant green, her expression alert. Se tries to speak, but can’t. She belongs to the angle. Not quite present, not quite gone, she swims in the blending twilight of in between.
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Kathleen “Kathy” Terese Wade Quotes in In the Lake of the Woods
The In the Lake of the Woods quotes below are all either spoken by Kathleen “Kathy” Terese Wade or refer to Kathleen “Kathy” Terese Wade. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 10
Quotes
They would live in perfect knowledge, all things visible, all things invisible, no wires or strings, just that large dark world where one plus one would always come to zero.
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Chapter 18
Quotes
Humming to herself, Kathy adjusted the tiller and began planning a dinner menu, two big steaks and salad and cold beer, imagining how she’d describe everything that was happening out here. Get some sympathy for herself. Get his attention for a change.
The idea gave her comfort. She could almost picture a happy ending.
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Chapter 22
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All you could do, he’d said, was open yourself up like a window and wait for fortune to blow in. And then they’d talked about stuck windows. Tony suggested that she unstick herself. So she’d shrugged and said she had tried it once but the unsticking hadn’t gone well.
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Chapter 29
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And here in a corner of John Wade’s imagination, where things neither live nor die, Kathy stares up at him from beneath the surface of the silvered lake. Her eyes are brilliant green, her expression alert. Se tries to speak, but can’t. She belongs to the angle. Not quite present, not quite gone, she swims in the blending twilight of in between.
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