Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m reviewing Deborah Brasket’s – When Things Go Missing. This book is a story about a mom who leaves home to go to the store – and doesn’t return. When mom goes missing, how does her husband Walter and her adult children cope in her absence?
Blurb:
What happens when the one person holding a family together mysteriously disappears? How well do we really know anyone, especially those we love the most?
One day Fran heads toward the grocery store and keeps going till she reaches the tip of South America, leaving an empty hole in the lives of her family: Kay, a cranky archaeology student who adores her mother but distrusts men in general, her father and brother in particular. Cal, a heroin addict living at home, left with a father he fears and no means of support; and Walter, a devoted husband but distant father, who tracks his wife’s journey across the continent with pushpins on a map.
Adding to the mystery of the mother’s disappearance are the “gifts” she sends her family: The elated messages she leaves on Kay’s phone, but never when she’s there to pick up. The strange photographs she sends Cal, who studies them like hieroglyphs he must decipher to save her and himself. The credit card bills she leaves Walter, allowing him to continue caring for her, until he undertakes his own journey northward. How they fill the missing pieces in their lives to make their family whole again creates the heart of this novel.
When Things Go Missing is a masterful exploration of loss, loyalty, and knotty, dysfunctional families, told through the viewpoints of Kay, Cal, and Walter. It reveals the subtle and dramatic ways addiction affects the bonds that hold a family together. This heartfelt meditation on family is wrapped up in a propulsive page-turner that you cannot help getting swept up in.
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My 5 Star Review:
When mom, Fran, flies the coop and leaves her dysfunctional adult children, Kay an archaeologist, and Cal a drug addict, and aloof husband Walter behind, the book is what happens. Fran goes out to the store one day and keeps driving right through to South America. We’ll learn through the chapters – stories shared by daughter Kay, and drug addict son Cal, and husband Walter who really doesn’t have much to say, but keeps track of his wife’s whereabouts on a map with a pushpin and continues to pay her credit card bills. Nobody seems overly concerned about Fran’s solo escape at first, but we’ll learn exactly how her missing presence really does affect her family as we get to know them and their thoughts about their family life through the chapters.
Family dysfunction abounds in this story, and as we learn how these characters feel about their absent mother, they are also learning to grow up and deal with their problems while mommy isn’t always around to make things better for them. This is a story about a dysfunct family who all appear lost when mom isn’t around, and a husband who too wanders.
Kay is a bit of a worry wart, and the one who presents herself with the clearest head. She’s always anxious and sometimes desperate to hear from her mom – who only calls on Kay’s landline to leave her messages when she knows Kay isn’t home. Cal is a mess. He’s drugged out and has been to rehab more than once. He doesn’t show responsibility and seems to have a love-hate relationship with his father. He’s been a pain and a drain for so long, I feel his dad is just tired of the rinse and repeat of Cal. Whereas, mom, Fran, has always coddled her son. Cal comes off to me as entitled with zero ambition, but somehow we can feel that he vies for his father’s attention; some recognition or approval when he attempts to do any household chore. Dad Walter comes off as aloof, no opinion, no worry, no questions as to why his wife is gone, yet he continues to pay for her lifestyle and travel.
Months after mom is gone, Dad decides he needs to take a fishing trip up in Alaska, and that journey opens up new ideas for Walter – perhaps like planting some roots in Alaska and fishing the rest of his life. Meanwhile, back at the house, Cal is on a never-ending trip with heroine and has been selling everything he can from the house to keep up his drug habit. And then once again, miraculously dries out again, deciding to take up welding with his free time; a convenient hobby since his dad was a welder and had a garage full of equipment. Has Cal decided to finally grow up? Then a new person shows up in Cal’s life who seems to turn the tide for him, as they are a good fit for each other. Can Cal stay away from the drugs? Kay also seems to grow up with her aversion to committment after she meets Richard, a gallery owner, and struggles with her feelings for Richard and her fear of committment.
I felt as though I was watching these characters grow as they seemed to stumble through life after Fran left their security zone. Even Walter in his new life, discovered things about himself, his marriage, and his kids as he planted himself in Alaska. Although we never find out why Fran left through this story, it’s not difficult to figure that perhaps Fran had had enough, wanted to explore the world, and knew leaving would be the only chance her adult children may have to finally grow up.
This book is a slow burn. It’s about people, family, lives, dependence, growing, struggling, and finally finding themselves on a bittersweet journey to discovery of self and peace. It’s character-driven so it’s meant to take these damaged people in and discover how life conditions them and finally finding themselves. It’s not a thriller with a suspenseful plot, it’s about how life affected one family when the matriarch took a powder. One may assume this is a story of Fran’s journey, but it’s really a story about how those left behind can handle life without their mother’s care, concern, and support, when we can see it was so blatantly taken for granted. Things change, people change – when things go missing.
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