Where'd You Go, Bernadette. This item is unavailable.Where'd You Go, Bernadette

<b>A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (<i>New York Times</i>).</b><br><br> Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom. <br><br> Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle -- and people in general -- has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic. <br><br> To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence -- creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

<div><b>Maria Semple</b> is the author of <i>This One Is Mine</i> and <i>Today Will Be Different</i>. Before turning to fiction, she wrote for <i>Mad About You</i>, <i>Ellen</i>, and <i>Arrested Development</i>. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker. She lives in Seattle.</div>