The Republic of Trees

Sam Taylor

Five adolescents - three boys, two girls - run away from unhappy homes and set up camp in a heavily forested corner of the French countryside. The group survives on fruit and nuts and the odd rabbit and later on there are raids on local farms for food. For amusement they swim, climb trees and experiment with sex. They discuss French Revolutionary history, read Rousseau, dabble in constitutional philosophy and declare a republic. But utopias of this kind will turn in on themselves and one founded on the example of the French Revolution must end in savagery.

Sam Taylor isn't covering new ground here. It's been done before and by better writers. The author has borrowed heavily from George Orwell and William Golding - think Lord of the Flies with extra hormones. And there are plotting and structural problems which are left unresolved. Nevertheless the book has a strong sense of atmosphere and most definitely casts a spell.