In The Lake Of The Woods By Tim O Brien

The book “In the lake of the woods”, written by Tim O’Brien, is about a Vietnam veteran and politicians story. The main character, John Wade, is a Vietnam veteran who was involved with a brutal massacre. John was also a politician, and in fear that the massacre he was involved with would affect his political career, John does everything he can to cover up this incident. During this time John's wife mysteriously disappears. John has an ambition throughout the story to cover up what happened to profit his own career.
John was a little crazy. He would do anything to cover up what happened in Vietnam just to persevere his political career. He went to such an extreme extent that he was forging papers and awarding himself medals just to cover up what happened in attempt help him politically. At one point in the book it reads, “you know, I think politics and magic were almost the same thing for him. Transformations—that’s part of it—trying to change things. When you think about it, magicians and politicians are basically control freaks.” This is true for John because he had to control every aspect of everything that was going on in his life. He needed to control his past so it wouldn't affect his present. This is an example of how ambitious John really was and how he would stop at nothing to protect his political career.

His ambition was so strong that no one, not a single soul knew what had happened, “he didn’t talk much. Even his wife I don’t think she knew the first damn thing about him … well, about any of it. The man just kept everything buried.” John never dealt with what happened. He buried it inside of him and never let it out. He was afraid that people wouldn't look at him in the same way and that it would ruin his political career. His ambition to keep this a secret was so strong that he tried to hide it away from