Elizabeth is Missing

Eighty-two year old Maud suffers from dementia. She has great difficulty remembering things from moment to moment and is often confused about where she is and who is with her. One thing she is certain of, though: her friend Elizabeth is missing, and no one but her seems to care. But Elizabeth's may not actually be the disappearance that's truly troubling her.

The cover on my copy of this novel, with the tagline "How do you solve a mystery when you can't remember the clues?" makes it sound like a mystery novel, albeit one with a twist. But while there is a mystery at the heart of it, and an intriguing one, I suspect anyone going into it expecting a conventional mystery story may be disappointed. What we get instead, though, is something show more quietly fascinating and subtly heart-breaking. And incredibly impressive, too. Writing from Maud's jumbled POV and somehow shaping that into a workable narrative seems like a nearly impossible challenge for an author, but Healey does it with a gentle touch that makes it seem like the simplest and most natural thing in the world. show less

Elizabeth is Missing by debut author Emma Healey is a poignant and gripping mystery about loss, memory and murder.

The narrative unfolds from the unique perspective of Maud Horsham, an eighty two year old mother and grandmother, suffering from progressive dementia. Maud relies on carefully written notes, and daily visits from a carer and her daughter Helen, to remember the things she forgets, but increasingly Maud’s concerns have narrowed to the lack of contact from her closest friend, Elizabeth. While Helen, and others, dismiss her fears as a senile obsession, Maud is convinced something awful has happened and embarks on an investigation to find her missing friend.

Told with extraordinary insight into the complexities of a failing mind show more I was effortlessly drawn into Maud’s muddled world. It is not an easy space to inhabit, especially if you have witnessed a similar decline in a loved one as I have, or fear a similar fate, as I do. Fleeting instances of lucidity add to the poignancy of the narrative as Maud slips between the past and the present, between remembering and forgetting.

Entwined with Maud’s search for Elizabeth, and her everyday struggle with her failing memory, is a second narrative that reveals in 1946 Maud’s married older sister, Sukey, vanished without a trace. It soon becomes clear that Maud’s fears for her missing friend, Elizabeth, are tangled with the memories of Maud’s sister’s disappearance, and to solve one mystery, will be to solve the other.

The suspense of both mysteries are well maintained through out the novel and the past and present narratives flow seamlessly into each other. Despite the distressing nature of Maud’s illness there are also moments of humour which helps to temper the bleak realities.

A clever and compelling novel, I thought Elizabeth is Missing was an engrossing read with an unforgettable protagonist. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. show less

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey was a wonderful read that I will be thinking about for a long time. Although it is offered as a mystery, it is indeed a study of dementia, with the reader being given an inside look at how the mind and memory disintegrate, and how it affects both the sufferer and the family. Maud is in her eighties and her memories tend to blend together as does her present and her past. She is convinced that her friend Elizabeth is missing and as she tries to take steps to discover what happened, she is constantly thrown back into the past when her sister Sukey also went missing.

The author is to be applauded for weaving such a strong story, peopled with excellent supporting characters such as Maud’s daughter, Helen show more and her granddaughter, Katie, as well as the personalities from the past. I literally couldn’t put the book down, was I reading about two murders, one murder or no murders? Were Maud’s shattered memories to be believed, and how heartbreaking it was to read about everyone involved having to watch as Maud’s world became increasingly fragmented.

Elizabeth Is Missing is a riveting and creative read that probably appeals to me more at my age of 70 than it might have at 35 or 40. As I age I live in fear of either myself or my husband contracting this disease that is so excellently yet terrifyingly shown in this book. The author captures Maud’s anxiety, confusion and anger as she descends into dementia, but there are also moments of tenderness and humor. I have a strong feeling that Elizabeth Is Missing will be one of my top reads for 2022. show less

I loved this mystery novel. The author brought this story alive and created tension using a problem that could happen to any one of us: Dementia.
Imagine that you know something is important, that you must remember it and its significance, but the words flit around your brain and then fly off like birds, beyond your grasp, out of reach and disappear: that is what is happening to Maud, a British grandmother who is suffering from memory loss. Maud hasn’t been able to reach her best friend Elizabeth, she knows something has happened to her, but no one believes her. Maud’s daughter Helen doesn’t listen because she’s heard her repeat “Elizabeth is missing” too many times and also she is overwhelmed by all the care her mom show more requires. Maud’s grand daughter Kate shrugs it off and humors her; and Elizabeth’s son gets angry and impatient with her. In the moments, when her brain is working, she tries everything to find Elizabeth, including going to the police who also humor her. As she loses grip of her daily memories she replays memories of her sister Sukey who disappeared after the bombing of London at the end of the war. A bunch of great characters flesh out the rest of this story. Emma Healey is an excellent writer, this is her first novel and I’m giving it 5 stars. show less

Maud, an elderly woman with symptoms of dementia, is concerned for her friend Elizabeth, who she believes has gone missing. She obsesses on this, repeatedly visiting Elizabeth's house, as well as the police, much to the frustration of her daughter Helen, and the amusement of her granddaughter, Katy. In reality, Maud's condition makes her unable to comprehend the real reason why Elizabeth is not at home.

Maud's days are long stretches of time alone, with a morning visit from a caregiver and an afternoon visit from Helen. Notes are posted all around her house, reminding Maud to lock the doors, and not to cook. Maud also writes notes to herself, to help her remember details. Her pockets are stuffed with tiny scraps of paper, most of which show more make no sense to her later. Slowly, the reason for Maud's obsession with Elizabeth becomes clear, as Maud reflects on her childhood and the disappearance of her sister, Sukey, in 1946 when Maud was still a young girl. Author Emma Healey deftly weaves narratives from the past and present, unraveling the Sukey mystery while also unraveling Maud's cognitive abilities. Maud's character was exceptionally well-developed and while I have no idea what it's like to slowly lose your memory, this felt like a realistic portrayal on both a physical and emotional level.

Since my parents both suffer from forms of dementia, I could relate to Helen's feelings of frustration and sadness. I couldn't put this book down, and yet sometimes it all became a bit much and I had to take a break, despite my keen desire to solve the Sukey mystery. And the present-day plot brought tears to my eyes many times as it progressed. This was an amazing debut novel. show less

Maud Horsham is the most unreliable narrator ever. It's not that she means to mislead; she isn't malicious or deceitful. She's sliding, rapidly, into dementia and has trouble remembering details. Her life has become a series of Why-did-I-come-into-this-room? moments. She writes countless notes for herself (she calls them her paper memory) but still she often forgets what she set out to do or where she was going and is confused by any change in her surroundings. The one thing she does remember, or at least most of the time, is that her friend Elizabeth is missing. No one else seems concerned—not her daughter, nor the NHS carers who come to assist her, not even the police when she reports her friend missing (for the fourth time in a show more fortnight as the desk sergeant informs her). She has trouble remembering when she last ate and sometimes can't think of the right word for everyday objects but she is sure of one thing: Elizabeth is in trouble. Perhaps robbers left her tied up in the basement or her awful son has done something to her. She has to find her friend and help her. She also remembers when her big sister went missing shortly after the war but that was a long time ago and right now she needs to find Elizabeth.

This is a remarkable debut novel. Maud is not the two dimensional character she could so easily have been in lesser hands. Healey portrays her sympathetically and brings the reader into Maud's diminishing world. In only three hundred pages she clearly shows Maud's deterioration as her disorientation grows and her moments of clarity become less frequent. Healey obviously understands the frustration and embarrassment of those losing their memory (as well as their place in society) and the fatigue of those who must offer repeated explanations that will be almost instantly forgotten. This is a poignant story of memory, families, love, and loss. show less

In the early chapters of Emma Healey’s confident and polished first novel, Elizabeth is Missing, Maud, who is in her 80s and suffers from dementia, lives alone in the family home where she grew up and has resided independently since the death of her husband. Her daughter Helen has engaged carers to look in on her and help her with basic tasks, but her condition has deteriorated to the point where she is easily confused and disoriented, so much so that she stuffs her pockets full of notes to remind her where she is going and what she is supposed to do when she gets there. In addition, her spotty recollection of recent events is leaving gaps in her memory for events from the distant past to leak in and cause even more confusion. Maud show more has always been obsessed with the fate of her older sister, Sukey, who disappeared without a trace shortly after the end of World War II. More recently, Maud finds that her friend Elizabeth has disappeared as well, and as her condition worsens the dementia causes the two mysteries to become conflated in her mind. Healey’s novel chronicles the gradual breakdown of Maud’s ability to separate reality from memory. In a series of poignant, painful, sometimes bizarre and occasionally humorous scenes filled with miscommunications and misunderstandings, Maud fumbles her way toward answers to both of the questions weighing on her mind. Healey fleshes out the novel with numerous flashbacks to Maud’s post-war life with her mother and father, compelling and deftly drawn scenes that take place immediately before and for several months after Sukey’s disappearance and which describe Maud’s attempts as an adolescent to get to the bottom of what happened to her sister. In composing this book, Healey faced enormous challenges that would have sunk a less talented writer. The masterstroke here is her evocative and convincing rendering of the thought processes of a dementia sufferer. Over and over again, she shows us Maud’s mind drifting as the past asserts itself in the present, as she fails to recognize someone with whom she was just carrying on a conversation, as she loses the thread of what she is trying to say mid-sentence. Maud’s reaction to these situations is sometimes frustration with herself, but just as often she sticks to her guns and denounces the people around her as daft and foolish. Moving, sometimes distressing, but always gripping and entertaining, Elizabeth is Missing is a different kind of suspense novel. To say that it is a triumph of empathy is to sell it far short. What Healey accomplishes in these pages is astonishing. Winner of the 2014 Costa Book Award prize for first novel. show less