Monday, April 14, 2014

Ten top books about missing persons

Laura Lippman's latest novel is After I'm Gone.

At the Guardian, she explained the allure of a particularly seductive and well-populated corner of literature in the preface to her top ten list of books about missing persons:
[T]he open-ended nature of missing person stories make them even more compelling [than murder stories]. They are real-life ghost stories, in which those who remain behind are haunted endlessly by the possible fates of those who have left them. In writing After I'm Gone, I thought a lot about how we can ever reconcile ourselves to the loss of someone vital. Even if – or especially if – it's a person that others feel we have no real claim on.
One title on Lippman's list:
If You Were Here, by Alafair Burke

A reporter on the hunt for nothing more than a hot story is surprised when a videotape of a subway rescue shows a woman who looks remarkably like an old friend who has been missing for years. Another great take on the age-old question of how well we know anyone – even our spouses. Especially our spouses.
Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: If You Were Here.

--Marshal Zeringue