Dark Passages: They All Disappear

My newest column at the Los Angeles Times has a missing persons themes running throughout, looking at new and recent books by Stewart O'Nan, Jennifer McMahon and Johan Theorin. Here's how it opens:

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, just more than 2,000children are reported missing every single day. The vast majority ofthem are found, sometimes quickly, but for the families and loved onesof those who are not, a canvas of unanswered questions opens up readyto be painted with a palette of psychological complexity.



No wonder that the plight of a disappeared youngster appeals to writerscrisscrossing into and out of genre: When a crime novel focuses onmurder, the expectation is that this chaotic event will be put rightwith the identity of the culprit. But disappearance suggests a moreelastic narrative that takes in a wide spectrum of emotions of thoseaffected.



In other words, a missing-person tale carries the weight of a dissonantchord perpetually unresolved but, as some of the most indelible novelsof the last few years demonstrate, also presents a wide swath of colorand tone rife for exploration from an array of vantage points.

Read on for the rest.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessions/2008/11/dark-passages-they-all-disappear.
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