This is a difficult book to summarize without spoilers, so I’m not going to try. The blurb, as blurbs will do, only tells you half the story, and in this case it’s possibly misleading. It might make you think that this is a mystery, or perhaps a psychological thriller, and that’s what you may be thinking up to about halfway through, but then everything changes.
It’s at about the midway point that you find out this story isn’t exactly about what you think it is. Then again, maybe it is. The revelation is something of a soap opera cliché but the author handles it somewhat deftly. Which isn’t to say it might not make you angry, although at this point you may already be ready slap the main character, Blain, around a little bit. Yes, he’s crazy - perhaps literally - with grief, but while you will sympathize with his situation, you might also want to yell at him for the terrible way he’s dealing with it.
In some ways, that’s what “Missing” is fundamentally about: the way a single, almost random, event can send a life spiraling out of control. Blain’s life is, for all practical purposes, circling the drain. The question for the remainder of the book is whether or not guilt and recriminations will suck him down, or if somehow, with the help of his friends, he can find the strength to pull himself back from the brink.
This is a very contemporary story, full of characters that are very recognizable archetypes of the American gay scene, with all the traits, both good and bad, that make up modern life. Blain is probably typical of a great many men, whose relationship was one of the few things holding him together, and when that was taken away, he threatens to fold like a house of cards. In some ways, the description of Blain’s attempts to pull himself back together seems mundane at times, but it gives the story a verisimilitude that it needs after the dramatic twist in the middle.
Some readers will identify more with Blain than others. Even if you haven’t experienced an addiction of some kind, the writing gives you a good glimpse of the feelings one goes through without being pedantic or overly dramatic. “Missing” won’t really wow you with vivid writing, or even a roller-coaster plot. It can read at times almost like a biography, although the author claims it’s simply based on a bad dream of ‘what if?’, but if you like biographical novels, this story might really appeal to you.
You can purchase “Missing” from Amazon
