I read a newsletter,
Shelf Awareness, and I often add their picks to my reading list. I came across a review for another book written by Heidi Julavits, "The Vanishers", and I picked this one up at the library while I was waiting for my hold to come. The main character is Mary, who has returned home for her mother's funeral. The family had never forgiven her for the scandal of her "fake abduction" as a teen years before. The story flips from Mary's view in the present, to her therapist's notes of sessions he had with her shortly after her abduction, and the so-called "What Might Have Happened" third person narration of her abduction. I found the author's determination to cloud the story with this "might-have" rather irritating and it made those chapters seem flat.
The premise is very interesting--is her story true or a lie? If a lie, did her feelings of anger towards her mother when she refused to believe Mary's story about an earlier possible molestation, cause her to create a situation that her mother could not ignore? Unfortunately, this book talks around these issues--in beautiful writing, to be sure--without resolving very much. A resolution is hinted at, but by that time, we are tired of Mary, her family, the therapists and the "abductor". Now I have to decide whether I want to read "The Vanishers".
Note: As I searched for a picture of the cover, I found that the title is borrowed from a famous Bruno Bettelhiem book (it has the subtitle "The Meaning and Purpose of Fairy Tales"). Well, that went way over my head.
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