How to be Lost - Softcover

Amanda Eyre Ward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091799791 ISBN 13: 9780091799793

Publisher: Hutchinson, 2005

Synopsis

To their neighbours in suburban Holt, New York, the Winters family has it all: a grand home, a trio of radiant daughters and a sense of security in their affluent corner of America. But when five-year-old Ellie disappears, the fault lines within the Winters family are exposed. Joseph, once a successful businessman, succumbs to his demons. Isabelle retreats into memories of her debutante days in Savannah, Georgia. And Ellie's bereft sisters grow apart: Madeline reluctantly stays at home, while Caroline runs away. Fifteen years later, Caroline, now a New Orleans cocktail waitress, sees a photograph of a woman in "People Magazine". Convinced that it is Ellie all grown up, Caroline embarks on a search for her missing sister, armed with copies of the photograph, an amateur detective guide, and a cooler of Dixie beer. As Caroline travels through the New Mexico desert, the mountains of Colorado, and the smoky underworld of Montana, she devotes herself to salvaging her broken family. With dark humour and gorgeous prose, Amanda Eyre Ward brings us a spellbinding novel about sisters, family secrets and love. Advance praise: "I can imagine comparisons to "The Lovely Bones", but there's nothing imitative about it. It crosses those literary/commercial boundaries by offering us a terrific story, told in dead-on, wonderful prose." - Ellen Sussman, author of "On A Night Like This". "You've got a great book in your hands - Ward shines here with the same humour and brilliance she showed in her first novel." - Andrew Sean Greer, author of "The Confessions of Max Tivoli".

About this title

Review:

'A voyage of discovery cloaked in suburban ennui: engaging and hard to let go' -- Kirkus

'The haunting story of a functionally dysfunctional family and the way the disappearance of one sister haunts the others' --New York Post

'The narrative is so engrossing, so propelling, you're surprised to come upon the last page' --Time Out New York

'invites comparison to The Lovely Bones. Ward's depiction of family, with its attendant love and guilt, keeps you turning pages.’ --People Magazine

From the Publisher:

'Lovely...it has that lovely tone that only American women writers seem to be able to achieve' Nick Hornby

[How to Be Lost] invites comparison to The Lovely Bones.’ People Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Hutchinson
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0091799791
• ISBN 13: 9780091799793
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320