Republic of Trees

This chilling variation on the theme of paradise lost takes place in a deep forest in southern France, where four pubescent English children have run away from their families to live like Jean-Jacques Rousseau's noble savage. The first half of the novel evokes their forest idyll, charged with adolescent longing (echoes of Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes). Alex and Louis hunt ecstatically, killing a wild boar and daubing themselves with blood. Louis's sensitive younger brother, narrator Michael, climbs up to the forest canopy or dallies with Alex's sexy sister Isobel in a beautiful forest pool. Enter the serpent, or, more prosaically, a tubby Canadian girl named Joy, who persuades them to pledge themselves to their own social contract while cleverly manipulating their weaknesses. Will their families find them before the finale of Lord of the Flies unfolds?