Elizabeth Is Missing - Hardcover

Healey, Emma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062309668 ISBN 13: 9780062309662

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2014

Synopsis

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A MYSTERY WHEN YOU CAN'T REMEMBER THE CLUES?

In this darkly riveting debut novel--a sophisticated psychological mystery that is also an heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity, and aging--an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared, and her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences.

Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory--and her grip on everyday life. Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, whom she is convinced is missing and in terrible danger.

But no one will listen to Maud--not her frustrated daughter, Helen, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son, Peter. Armed with handwritten notes she leaves for herself and an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth and save her beloved friend.

This singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present. But the clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II.

As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of Sukey's disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?

About this title

Review:

"[A] knockout debut.... Ms. Healey's audacious conception and formidable talent combine in a bravura performance that sustains its momentum and pathos to the last."--Wall Street Journal

"Maud Horsham, the narrator of Emma Healey's spellbinding first novel...is aware that she's slipping into dementia.... It's a sad and lonely business watching your identity slowly slip away. But even at the end, Maud insists on making herself heard and understood."--New York Times Book Review

"Part mystery, part meditation on memory, part Dickensian revelation of how apparent charity may hurt its recipients, this is altogether brilliant."--Booklist (starred review)

"A thrillingly assured, haunting and unsettling novel, I read it at a gulp."--Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

"Elizabeth Is Missing is every bit as compelling as the...hype suggests.... The novel is both a gripping detective yarn and a haunting depiction of mental illness, but also more poignant and blackly comic than you might expect."--The Observer, (London)

"British author Healey draws on her own grandmothers' experiences to create the distinctive narrator of her first novel... an absorbing tale."--Publishers Weekly

"A gripping mystery...this bears comparison to A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and S. J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep.--The Bookseller, "Ones to Watch"

"A compelling read, Elizabeth is Missing offers added depth of mystery and suspense along with aptly portraying a family trying to cope with illness."--New York Journal of Books

"Elizabeth is Missing will stir and shake you: an investigation into a seventy-year-old crime, through the eyes of the most likeably unreliable of narrators. But the real mystery at its compassionate core is the fragmentation of the human mind."--Emma Donoghue

"Ingeniously structured and remarkably poignant.... A riveting story of friendship and loss that will have you compulsively puzzling fact from fiction as you race to the last page."--Kimberly McCreight, New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia

From the Back Cover:

In this darkly riveting debut novel, a sophisticated psychological mystery, one woman will stop at nothing to fiFInd her best friend, who seems to have gone missing. . . .

Despite Maud's growing anxiety about Elizabeth's welfare, no one takes her concerns seriously--not her frustrated daughter, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son--because Maud suffers from dementia. But even as her memory disintegrates and she becomes increasingly dependent on the trail of handwritten notes she leaves for herself in her pockets and around her house, Maud cannot forget her best friend. Armed with only an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth--no matter what it takes.

As this singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present, the clues she uncovers lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: that of her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II. As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud's search for Elizabeth develops a frantic momentum. Whom can she trust? Can she trust herself?

A page-turning novel of suspense, Elizabeth Is Missing also hauntingly reminds us that we are all at the mercy of our memory. Always compelling, often poignant, and at times even blackly witty, this is an absolutely unforgettable novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0062309668
• ISBN 13: 9780062309662
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 303