G.D. McNeill’s novel captures the slow destruction of a once-pristine forest, offering a poignant reflection on environmental loss and the irreversible impact of human greed.
Below are my book notes after reading The Last Forest.
The Last Forest by G.D. McNeill is a work of fiction, but its emotional resonance and portrayal of environmental destruction feel deeply real. Through the eyes of its characters, McNeill presents a gripping and sorrowful account of a wilderness lost to the forces of industrialization and human greed. Although set in a fictionalized version of Appalachia, the story's themes echo real-world events, offering a powerful reflection on the irreversible impact of deforestation.
The novel begins in an idyllic, almost mythical forest, a childhood paradise for the narrator and his family, before slowly unraveling into a scene of devastation. McNeill’s The Last Forest takes readers on a journey that starts in innocence and wonder and ends in disillusionment and loss.
A Fictional Eden: Childhood in the Forest
“G.D. and Uncle Dock’s part of it ran for 60 unbroken miles beyond our Pinnacle Mountain, a quarter million acres of hardwood forest.”
The story begins in what seems like an Edenic wilderness, a forest teeming with life, stretching for 15 million acres from the top of the Allegheny range to the banks of the Ohio River. In this fictional world, the narrator’s childhood memories are of a place where nature exists in perfect balance, largely untouched by human hands. It is a place of wild beauty, where eastern bison roam freely, and streams are filled with trout so plentiful that they are poured “like a silver cataract” into his mother’s dishpans. These scenes of abundance illustrate a world where humans live in harmony with nature.
The young narrator recalls standing in the kitchen, watching the men bring in their catch: “silver-sided, orange-bellied, red-speckled trout that G.D. called the ‘speckled beauties.’” The bounty of the forest is taken for granted, but the reader is soon made aware that this balance will not last. The forest, with its “long pavilions of shade” and “clear rolling rivers,” seems timeless and eternal—but as the novel progresses, the fragility of this world becomes evident.
The Gradual Destruction of the Wilderness
“When it all changed, it was not suddenly. There was no sudden summer or sudden fall; but gradually, as the years moved by, the song turned sour,” McNeill writes.
In The Last Forest, McNeill takes care to show that the destruction of this paradise was not immediate. The story charts the slow, creeping disappearance of the Appalachian forest, a loss that happens in small, incremental steps—each seemingly insignificant until the cumulative effect becomes overwhelming.
The fictionalized timeline traces the encroachment of industry, beginning in the 1880s when the first white pine trees were cut and floated downriver. Uncle Dock’s hopeful insistence that “by God, they can't take her; she’s too big for them” becomes tragically ironic as the story unfolds. The arrival of the railroad in 1900 marks a turning point in the novel. What was once thought to be too remote and vast to be destroyed is now accessible, as McNeill describes the Italian workers carving through the steep river cuts to lay the tracks that will allow the hardwood trees to be harvested.
Fictional Wealth, Real Consequences
“Up at town, brick-and-brownstone houses were built; hardware stores and whiskey stills flourished, and boardwalks were laid down.”
As the lumber industry booms in the novel, towns are transformed. Wealth floods in, and prosperity seems to follow. But McNeill makes it clear that this prosperity is fleeting. The quick wealth of the lumber industry comes at a cost, especially to the forest itself. The heavy hardwood trees, once thought untouchable, are felled and sent out by log trains, and soon, the landscape bears the scars.
The novel paints a bleak picture of the aftermath. The rivers turn muddy, suffocating the trout with sawdust in their gills. Forest fires spread unchecked, and the once-majestic trees are left to rot on the hillsides. McNeill writes, capturing the heartbreak of a forest fighting a losing battle.
“They saw the roots of the great stumps sticking up three feet above the burned-out topsoil as though they still tried to clutch to the Earth”
Zeke’s Return: A Ruined World
One of the most powerful moments in The Last Forest comes when the character Zeke returns to the mountains after years away, only to find the forest he loves unrecognizable. In a passage laden with symbolism, Zeke boards a slow-moving train that stops at countless small lumber plants, revealing just how much the industry has infiltrated the once-remote wilderness. As Zeke reflects on the "monotonous buzzing" of the saws cutting through the logs of ancient trees, he becomes increasingly uneasy.
When Zeke finally arrives, the sight that greets him is devastating. The house where he once spent his childhood has collapsed, the garden has grown wild, and the river that was once clear is now black and vile-smelling. McNeill describes Zeke's shock: "Where the garden had been there lay a weed-grown heap of tumbled brick, marking the spot where the boilers of the abandoned mill had rested." The woods, too, have changed beyond recognition. The great oaks that once lined the river’s bluffs are gone, and the hills, once covered in forest, have been reduced to bare, eroded slopes.
Zeke’s sense of loss is palpable as he surveys the damage. The great trees that had once been "personal friends" to him have been felled, and in their place, a wasteland stretches as far as the eye can see. His sorrow reflects the broader tragedy of the novel—the irreversible loss of a landscape and a way of life.
"If I’d dreamed it was like this, I’d never a asked ye tu come up here," Zeke laments.
The Dream of the Forest
Despite the destruction, McNeill’s narrator clings to the memory of the forest as it once was. The fictional world of The Last Forest is haunted by a deep, mystical connection to the wilderness. Even after its destruction, the narrator holds onto a vision of the forest, untarnished and untouched in his imagination.
"In my obsession and possession, the hunter men still walked. The great trees lifted forever across my vision, and the sounding water still ran.”
This dream of the forest, though, is just that—a dream. It remains distant, always just out of reach, "moving before The Seekers like the sun." The tragedy of The Last Forest lies not only in the physical destruction of the wilderness but also in the shattering of the idealized vision of nature that can never be reclaimed.
Fiction and Reality: A Reflection on Environmental Loss
Though The Last Forest is a work of fiction, its themes are rooted in real-world events. McNeill’s novel mirrors the actual deforestation of Appalachia that occurred during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as industrial logging swept through the region. In this way, the novel serves as both a fictional account and a powerful allegory for real life. The story offers a timeless lesson about the dangers of unchecked industrialization. We are reminded that the destruction of nature often happens slowly, in small steps, until it becomes too late to reverse. The Last Forest is not just a story about the past; it is a warning for the future.