Fiction
Into the Forest
by Jean Hegland
Set in the near-future, Into the Forest focuses on the relationship between two teenaged sisters as they struggle to survive the collapse of society. Despite the fact that their happy world is rocked when their mother dies of cancer, they and their father are determined to carry on. Even as terrorism, a distant war, increasingly unpredictable weather, and an unstable economy challenge the reliability of social order and infrastructure, their little family continues to hoard its resources and attempts to keep up its spirits as they wait for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring, and the lives they have been anticipating to return to them. But when their father is killed in an accident, and a dangerous stranger arrives at their door, the girls confront the fact that they must find some new way to grow into adulthood. Into the Forest is a BookSense Reading Group Pick, Readers Choice Book Club Favorite, and Book of the Month Club alternative pick. The film adaptation, starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016. First published by Calyx Press in 1996 and then reprinted by Penguin Random House/Dial.
