ISBN 978-1-929490-31-8
Hardcover
September 15, 2008
384 pages
5 3/4 x 8 3/8"
$24.95
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Missing Persons
A N O V E L
by D. K. Smith
This is the story of Harry
Bailey and his attempts to restart a life that has come to an emotional
standstill. He has been living with his father since his mother walked out on
them both six years before, and together they have sunk into a lonely routine.
But their dead-end life is suddenly disrupted when the elder Bailey begins
dating a woman young enough to be his daughter. Harry blames his father for
driving his mother away, and he is hurt and angry that his father seems to be
getting on with his life and leaving Harry behind. He becomes increasingly aware
of his father's obvious happiness, and of Mona, the woman responsible. She is,
he discovers, a private detective who specializes in finding missing persons,
and as Harry is inadvertently drawn into one of her cases, he is forced to
confront all that is missing from his own life. Despite himself, he falls in
love with her, and the ensuing complications reach a fevered pitch when, after
all the years away, his mother finally returns.
A moving exploration of the joys and contradictions of love, this
work is beautifully written with a quirky humor that invites both laughter and
contemplation.
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A graduate of Yale and
the Iowa Writers' Workshop, D. K. Smith is professor of English at Kansas State
University, Manhattan. This is his second novel. His first,
Nothing
Disappears, was published in 2004. He and his wife
divide their time between the American heartland and their island in Canada. |
