The Disappeared
Stories
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A collection of stories that trace the threads of loss and displacement running through all our lives, by the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Theory of Light and Matter
“What a beautiful book about the profound mystery of ordinary life.” —Alix Ohlin, author of We Want What We Want
A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and figurative—lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one's youthful self. From San Antonio to Austin, from the clamor of a crowded restaurant to the cigarette at a lonely kitchen table, Andrew Porter captures each of these relationships mid-flight, every individual life punctuated by loss and beauty and need. The Disappeared reaffirms the undeniable artistry of a contemporary master of the form.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A series of middle-aged men mull their regrets in this wistful collection from Porter (The Theory of Light and Matter). "Rhinebeck" traces the sad life of Richard, who moved to Upstate New York 20 years earlier with his college friends David and Rebecca, a married couple. He spends each day at David and Rebecca's restaurant, as the couple makes surreptitious plans to move to Austin, Tex., afraid Richard will feel abandoned. In "Breathe," Gavin fails to react when his five-year-old son, Ian tumbles into a pool. Someone else rescues Ian, and later, Gavin worries Ian has health problems from the water that got into his lungs, while Ian chafes at the attention ("I'm not a baby," he tells his father). Some of the stories play out over a few pages, such as "Lime," about a man who receives a lime tree from an artist named Lorena and comes to believe that keeping the tree alive will somehow prevent Lorena's fifth marriage from failing. There's pathos in these stories, but the similar situations and narrow range of emotions tend to wear thin. Though polished, this doesn't leave much of an impression.
