Among the Missing

"Big Me" is the creepy tale about a boy who thinks he sees his adult self in a substitute teacher at his school. Andy fantasizes about being a detective and spends his spare time torturing confessions out of cats and breaking into people's homes. When he snoops around the home of his teacher he discovers a photograph of a boy who looks a lot like him. Soon Andy is keeping a journal of his adult self's life as if it were his own.
Best quote, "Sometimes I think: if no one knows you, then you are no one" (p 52).

"Something to Remember Me By" is the even creepier tale about a man whose best friend had disappeared when they were fourteen. Even though it's fifteen years later Tom still feels the guilt. The missing boy's parents have inserted show more themselves into Tom's life as if to keep the memory of their own son alive. Seeing them makes Tom feel guilty. What drives Tom's guilt is the fact he knows more about his friend's disappearance than he's letting on. And, to add to the guilt he knows he can never tell. show less

One of the few short story collections I've ever read, but what a pleasure. Chaon is a master at creating character in a short piece. The mood of most stories in the collection is bleak, although often with a tinge of dark humor. I enjoyed these more thoroughly than even the widely acknowledged king of the modern short story himself, Raymond Carver.

So many reviews to catch up on from my summer reading. I read this one a couple of months ago and just found it again today on a shelf. Dan Chaon writes about people who are lost and have disappeared in this one and gives us glimpses into what it's also like to have someone go missing. It's interesting how Chaon can take such a dark subject and make a sort of sense of it so that it has it's own language and texture. I never really felt as horrified by these stories as I thought I should and that made me feel a little odd, actually. But there's a thick poetic reality in some of his writing, too. There's some notions about personal identity here, too, though not as much as in his novel, Await Your Reply. Still, we get a real sense of his show more characters as people as well as their inner monologues or thought processes which helps us as readers to both feel for them and understand them. He also does well to explore the psyche of people in a variety of backgrounds. This is a worthwhile collection of short stories!


Memorable quotes:

pg. 93 "Why do we think that, we parents? Why do I think it even now, standing in the dark, watching my sons sleeping? Save me, save me, I think. And yet they can't, of course. Already I am halfway gone. Even from the beginning, when their infant's eyes begin to focus on our floating face, the way a cat will watch the moon, you are already a ghost of yourself."

pg. 107 "Here is the beautiful carousel. The horses are all brightly colored, posed in forms of agitation. They life their red mouths as if calling out, their legs curved into gallops, their manes whispering in an imaginary wind."

pg. 133 "I saw it as a scene in a Bergman film-a kind of dreamy blur around the edges, the water a certain undersea color, like a reflection through green glass."

pg. 141 "I remember the time my mother tried to kill herself. o one ever spoke of it as such, but at that age I was old enough to put it together. I recall the ambulance coming to our house, the men trying to put her on a stretcher and her just aware enough to struggle with them-flailing her arms when t hey lifted her, her mumbled protests through lips that seemed clay like and unnatural, moving like a badly dubbed Japanese film." show less

This collection of short stories is very well written and provides an insightful perspective into ordinary people. The stories themselves are, for the most part, pretty depressing.

The stories in the first half of the book seemed to be snapshots of peoples lives. Just a few days or weeks in the life of someone who had significant personal problems or issues to deal with. There was no conclusion to these stories. They just ended, with nothing resolved.

The stories in the second half were just as depressing, but they seemed to at least have a conclusion.

I have found Chaon's novels to be some of the most edifying and lovely pieces of work I've ever read. I came to this collection with the same expectations, but that was a mistake. The best of the collection is the title story - but in it I recognized the elements I find most attractive in his novels: mystery, still present at the heart of even the closest relationships, unwanted disconnection, unavoidable loss.

Interesting, well-written collection of short stories, most from a male point of view. Most of the stories deal with something lost or missing, and easily kept my interest.

Another beautifully written book by Chaon. A strange coincidence that the blurb on the cover was written by Lorrie Moore who I had JUST finished before this one. Between Dan Chaon and Tom Drury I do believe I need a break from the futility and hopelessness of the human condition (especially the mid west condition). Going to take a break and read a few thrillers as escape.