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Songs For The Missing (2008)

by Stewart O'Nan(Favorite Author)

3.4 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

067002032X (ISBN13: 9780670020324)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Viking Adult

review 1: The truth of this narrative is the description of waiting, expecting and hoping for the unexpected, the unthinkable. Loss is already a dreadfull subject, a horrible feeling, mourning is painful and long. But loss isn't sure or justified in the disappearence of young Kim, in this book. And Stewart O'Nan starts to describe skillfully the impossible feeling of not knowing what happened to your loved one, where is she, why, dead or alive... The impossible feeling of loosing the basic control on human relations, the privation to say goodbye and any other kind of closure.The best thing is small little sentences like "the memory, like any deep desire, had the ability to thrill and shame him at the same time", and they help to add the fourth star.What i would change, is the end of... more the book, as i think the most important thing is the description of floating, of uncertainty of swinging through possibilities, and how these feelings form and influence the characters. Closure in my opinion wasn't necessary.
review 2: This book is pretty brilliant. It’s also sad and introspective and thought-provoking, but mostly brilliant. It’s the story of Kim Larsen, a pretty 18-year-old, who disappears mysteriously one summer night. The police are lackadaisical about her disappearance at first, but foul play becomes evident before long. It’s a tabloid, true crime-ish plot, but it’s not really about Kim’s disappearance, or the investigation or the person who kidnapped her. It’s about the family she left behind (her mother, father and younger sister) and about the friends and boyfriend that had seen her several hours before her disappearance. The book is sparing and almost flat and I think this is purposeful. We tend to look at cases—disappearances, in particular—and concoct all of these dramatic and speculative horror stories or conspiracies, but the reality almost always seems so different. There is an initial surge of interest—a huge media push for anything, everything the family can offer. They give as much as they can and soon it fades away to a daily monotony. This portion of the book seems almost like a purgatory, with the family acting close to their normal selves. It seems strange to the reader that the family is not more dysfunctional or emotionally unstable, but taken as a whole, you can see their slow exhaustion from riding a bubble of hope and expectation. When they grow tired and that becomes too difficult to maintain, there is nothing left for them to do but resume the “normal” lives that had been put on hold. Movies and the media have led us to expect a certain kind of grieving or suspense in stories like this, but I expect this portrayal is more accurate. It feels more accurate, anyway. I occasionally watch the show Disappeared on ID and am always frustrated, sad and incredulous at the episodes where the missing person seems to have vanished into thin air. The show’s interviews with family and friends seem to echo a lot of the sadness and the desperate emptiness that O’Nan has woven into each of the characters in this book. I am glad I read it: Though it is occasionally slow and mundane, these are the same qualities that make the book so meaningful. less

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