Heartwood
'nearly impossible to put down' Jennifer Egan
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- £11.99
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
'Fast-paced and full of grace . . . a memorable meditation on the forms of care' Sarah Moss
'An unforgettable treat' Janice Hallett
'An absolute must-read' Elin Hildebrand
In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.
At the centre of the search is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who managing the search on the ground. While Beverly is searching, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie's disappearance may not be accidental.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A woman vanishes near Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness in this uneven literary thriller from Gaige (Sea Wife). At first, Gregory Bouras doesn't worry when his wife, Valerie, fails to meet him at a Maine trailhead for a scheduled resupply during her hike of the Appalachian Trail; she's been walking for three months now and has been routinely waylaid. After 24 hours without word, however, Gregory calls the authorities. Lt. Beverly Miller of the Maine Warden Service has led several dozen successful searches for off-course thru-hikers every year, but when a massive, multiday effort turns up no sign of Valerie, Bev fears the worst. Meanwhile, in a Connecticut retirement community, disabled septuagenarian Lena Kucharski learns of the search from a Mainer she met on a foraging subreddit who believes Valerie stumbled upon a secret military training facility. Gaige interweaves Bev's first-person narration with chapters from Lena's perspective, letters a lost Valerie writes to her mom, and transcripts of hotline tips and recorded interviews with people following the case. The preposterous, unfocused plot disappoints, but multifaceted characters and poetic prose enhance Gaige's tender meditations on aging and mother-daughter relationships. It's a mixed bag.
