Songs for the Missing

One beautiful summer day 18-year-old Kim Larsen spent the afternoon with her friends, down at the river. She left for work … and disappeared. That magical time between high school and college was turned upside down. Kim’s parents, Fran and Ed, frantically search for their daughter and quickly realize they need help. The police launch an investigation and Fran’s work colleagues help to mobilize an awareness campaign through local media. But progress is slow, with many false leads and dead ends.

As the family searches for answers, Songs for the Missing shifts from a mystery, to a portrait of a family and community rocked to its core by an unthinkable event. Fran becomes the family spokesperson, giving interviews and organizing show more search volunteers and fundraisers. Activity keeps her from facing buried emotions. Ed supports Fran and advocates with the police, but is more obviously anxious and depressed. Kim’s younger sister Lindsay holes up in her bedroom and has to process what’s happened largely on her own.

I had a strong emotional response to this novel; it was very well-written but I had to pace myself so as not to be overcome. Stories like Kim’s are all too common in today’s society, and Stewart O’Nan gives it the respectful treatment it deserves. show less

In Songs for the Missing, Stewart O'Nan allows us only one stunningly ordinary chapter in the life of Kim Larsen before she vanishes without a trace. The one chapter is so barren of clues that we are left just as baffled as the family and friends left behind to dissect how Kim could have disappeared on that last seemingly ordinary day. O'Nan's story, however, is not about Kim. As a matter of fact, Songs for the Missing is not, though it might seem, even a book about finding Kim. Songs for the Missing is a picture of the ordinary people left behind when their daughter, their sister, their friend is just suddenly mysteriously gone.

Each character reacts in their own way to Kim's disappearance. Kim's mother, Fran, loses herself and perhaps show more even the spirit of her daughter in her incessant publicity campaign to continue the search for Kim. Kim's father, Ed, forsakes his job and even sometimes his family as he follows the action of the search, traveling to each new area where leads are discovered to hang flyers and look for himself, unable to return home and simply wait. Kim's sister, Lindsay, retreats in silence to her room where she takes refuge in books, e-mailing, and the family dog, none of which can replace the identity and future that she has been robbed of with the disappearance of her sister. Kim's boyfriend, J.P. and and her best friend, Nina, struggle with some shady what-if involving drugs and an ex-Marine, whose late discovery robs them of the right to even be involved in the search for Kim.

The reader is present for about three years during which there are some leads but no real news about Kim, and during which all the people she left behind are forced to consider how long is long enough to feel bereft and when, if ever, it is okay to feel okay again. Without any certain resolution, the characters exist in a purgatory where hope has gradually faded away to be replaced with a nothingness that forces them to re-create themselves in a world without Kim without ever knowing whether she is, indeed, dead, as many suspect or merely gone.

Songs for the Missing starts out a mystery and ends up as a penetrating character study of those who lost parts of themselves when they lost Kim. As such, O'Nan's writing shies away from the facts of the investigation in favor of probing the pysches of his characters. As a character study, Songs for the Missing is an undeniable success. Unfortunately, my own curiosity, efforts to pry loose some unnoticed detail that would prove the answer to the mystery, and desire to know the truth about what happened got in the way of my enjoyment of the book. Instead of wanting to know the characters left behind, my mind was focused on what happened to Kim. Because O'Nan skirts those details and offers up an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion to the investigation without ever probing the hows or the whys that keep Kim's fictional family up at night, I ultimately felt let down and as if I had missed something that, it turns out, wasn't there to start with. A certain mindset is called upon to appreciate this book, and I wasn't properly in it.

That said, O'Nan's writing is crisp and clean and beautifully grapples with the very human emotions faced by the characters in this uncertain situation. Having read Songs for the Missing, I'm certain it won't be the last of O'Nan's books that I will read. Then again, it probably won't be my favorite either. show less

I would read a phone book written by Stewart O'Nan. He knows just the perfect detail to include to immediately draw the reader in and identify with his characters and their experiences. This novel is about the aftermath of the disappearance of an 18-year old girl. The different ways in which her parents, and her sister, and her friends cope with her absence and the mystery surrounding it, are illustrated in vignettes told from various perspectives. What I loved was how the characters were all distinct and how O'Nan gave them each their own story but ultimately brought them all to the same place, as if acknowledging the importance of the paths we take, as opposed to the destination we come to.

Stewart O'Nan allows his readers to glimpse the lives of those who alternately hope and mourn during the agony of a missing 18-year old girl, Kim. The day-to-day existence is charted from the individual perspectives of those who loved Kim, and how each attempts to cope with her disappearance. It alters relationships between everyone involved in the search to understand what happened to Kim. O'Nan is particularly gifted at these poignant descriptions, and allows the reader to experience all the emotions in this unimaginable event. It also makes us aware of the very real experiences of those whom we see on television pleading for help in finding a missing person. This book will continue to haunt me for a long time.

4.5 out of 5: Very early in Songs for the Missing, a popular high school senior (Kim Larsen) goes missing. The rest of the book explores the impact of Kim’s disappearance on her family and close friends. As usual, O’Nan gives us likeable characters we really care about. Throughout Songs, O’Nan cultivates a pervading (and unsettling) sense of suspense while also taking time to explore the inner workings of Kim’s well-drawn family members and friends. As I read more O’Nan (first Last Night at the Lobster, then The Good Wife, and now Songs), my respect for his writing grows. O’Nan’s prose is plain but it communicates complexity, and O’Nan’s unfailing sympathy for his characters comes through in every page. Song’s is my show more favorite O’Nan novel so far.

This review also appears on my blog Literary License (short reviews, real opinions): litlicense.blogspot.com show less

Stewart O'Nan is at the top of his game in this disturbing and extremely moving portrait of a family that has suffered an irreparable loss. But SONGS FOR THE MISSING is much more than just a suspense novel about a missing child. It is about all that it means to be human, including the pain. O'Nan is one of those rare writers who can hold his readers in the palm of his hand, slowly clenching that hand into a fist until they feel that pain. I was reminded of some of the best work of the late Frederick Busch. This is a book that will haunt you. It is contemporary fiction at its finest.

This is one of the most powerfully written books I've read in quite some time. Put simply, it's the story of a Midwestern family dealing with the aftermath when its oldest daughter disappears into thin air one sunny summer afternoon.

O'Nan is a terrifically gifted writer who knows how to craft a beautiful sentence. But better yet, he is one of all too few authors who still trust their readers to understand what is going on in the minds and hearts of the characters without being spoonfed the significance of every thought, action, and element of the story. If you're looking for a missing persons drama fit for Lifetime: Television for Women, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a touchy-feely "exploration" of grief and healing, ala novels show more featured by Oprah's Book Club, look elsewhere. But if you're looking for one of the most subtle, true-to-life examinations of human beings reacting to, and trying to hold it together in, the face of terrible tragedy, this is the novel for you.

O'Nan also earns major points for the unerring realism of his narrative. Not every character reconciles with those around him or her...just as in real life. Not every family comes together in the face of adversity and solves all of its problems...just as in real life. Not everyone gets stronger and moves on. Not everyone falls apart, decimated by grief. And not every mystery is solved satisfactory...indeed, O'Nan's genius may just lie in the fact that he realises that the true drama in a missing persons case lies not in the police procedures or the sordid history of the missing girl, or the suspects' twisted kinks and fetishes: these are the plot foci of lazy authors. Songs for the Missing avoids these easy-way-outs in favor of a narrative that has the power to truly hurt through its believability and familiarity to our own everyday worlds.

Finally, as someone who's spent my entire life in the area in which O'Nan has set his story, I can say he captures the feel of the lake, the interstates, and the small Midwestern town perfectly.

I'm going to stop here because this review is really not doing the book justice. So you should go read the book instead. show less