Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Like a modern-day Poe, Winnette (Fondly) has fashioned a narrator whose pull on the reader's sympathy gradually fades as she recounts the aftermath of her daughter's mysterious disappearance. The girl, who remains unnamed (like her parents), was put to bed one evening and simply vanished in the night. As her parents appear on various talk shows in an effort to find their daughter, her mother recounts, in small, minutely observed sections, the devastation wrought by the loss of a child. At first, the reader shares the woman's pain as she struggles to come to grips with her loss. Slowly, however, the reader becomes aware that first impressions are not to be trusted, as the narrator begins to reveal less about her child and more about her own tenuous grasp on sanity. This novel offers a glimpse into an unhinged mind, made all the more horrifying by the narrator's own obliviousness. Winnette's deeply affecting story is hard to put down and even harder to forget. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When a couple's young daughter vanishes, a carefully controlled way of life slowly and inexorably collapses. The opening sentence of Winnette's short novel reveals the general shape of what's to come: "We were on the porch most of the night before she vanished." The novel's narrator never reveals her name, and she refers to her daughter's father as "her Dad" throughout. From this, two things can be gleaned: The narrator is fond of precision and she isn't in the habit of divulging any information that doesn't absolutely need to be divulged. Soon enough, the disappearance has taken its toll: "Her dad and I don't sleep anymore, but we still get into bed." As the distraught couple alternates between trying to get their lives back in order and making media appeals for their daughter's return, clues slowly accumulate that suggest their idyllic life isn't all it seems. In the novel's opening scene, the narrator remembers her husband brutally killing a coyote; later, there will be impromptu haircuts, the destruction of inanimate objects, and scenes of introspection that turn ominous and violent. Slowly, the raw elements of a happy family are curdled into something far bleaker. Winnette's eye for the media also plays a part here: The distraught couple seeks help from a series of talk shows and news programs. As time passes, the narrator's efforts to get back on TV to press her case again, as well as her fixation on a police officer investigating the case, threaten the fragile strands of a seemingly peaceful existence. While there's a contemporary urgency to Winnette's novel, it's the small details (and how they are revealed) that give this story its considerable sting. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
