Wonder When You'll Miss Me - Hardcover

Davis, Amanda

3.86

1,484 ratings by Goodreads

9780688167813: Wonder When You'll Miss Me

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688167810 ISBN 13: 9780688167813

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2003

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Follow sixteen-year-old Faith Duckle in this audacious and darkly funny tale as she moves through the difficult journey from the schoolyard to the harlequin world of the circus. At fifteen, Faith was lured under the bleachers by a bunch of boys at a football game and raped. Now, almost a year later, a newly thin Faith is haunted by her past, and by the cruel, flippant ghost of her formerly fat self, who is bent on revenge.

This quest for retribution eventually compels Faith to violence, forcing her to flee home in search of the only friend she has -- a troubled but caring busboy named Charlie, who is the lover of a sideshow performer -- and to tumble into the colorful, transient world of the circus. But as she leaves her old life behind and dives headfirst into a world of adult passions and dreams, mercurial allegiances, and exhilarating self-discovery (while paying considerable dues with a shovel in the elephant tent), Faith ultimately begins to discover who she is and all that she is capable of.

Wonder When You'll Miss Me combines tender wit with page-turning energy and characters as original as they are memorable. By turns harrowing and poignant, lyrical and hilarious, it is a vibrant, compelling novel readers won't forget.

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Review:

"Heartbreaking." -- Kirkus Reviews

"An utterly unique take on what it means to run away and join a circus."--Elizabeth Strout, author of AMY AND ISABELLE

"Amanda Davis writes gently, even poetically about extraordinary brutality. She has a distinctively creepy, even noirish sensibility."--New York Times Book Review

"A story that is at once harrowing and, strangely, filled with adventure."--Michael Chabon, author of SUMMERLAND

"This is such a good book--the voice is so engaging, heartbreaking and true."----Susan Richards Shreve, author of Plum & Jaggers

"This is a marvelous modern-girl odyssey, dark and comic and poignant and smart."--Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief

"This book is a circus Pygmalion -- a spectacular tale of injury, heartbreak, and metamorphosis."--Jonathan Ames, author of The Extra Man

"Heartbreaking."--Kirkus Reviews

"At the end of this rich and satisfying novel...I did not want to leave."--Michelle Chalfoun, author of Roustabout and The Width of the Sea

"Amanda Davis has a wicked and inspired imagination."--Brady Udall, author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

About the Author:

Amanda Davis was raised in Durham, North Carolina. She was tragically killed in a plane crash on her way to her childhood state where she was scheduled to promote her debut novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me, published in February 2003. She resided in Oakland, California, where she taught in the MFA program at Mills College. Davis also authored Circling the Drain, a collection of short stories. Her fiction, nonfiction, and reviews have been published in Esquire, Bookforum, Black Book, McSweeney's, Poets and Writers, Story, Seventeen, and Best New American Voices 2001.

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