Elizabeth Is Missing - by Emma Healey (Paperback)

About the Book

"In a heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity, and aging, an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared. Convinced Elizabeth is missing and in terrible danger, Maud's search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences. As this singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present, the clues she discovers seem to lead to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II."--From the publisher.

Book Synopsis

How do you solve a mystery when you can't remember the clues?

In this darkly riveting debut novel--a sophisticated psychological mystery that is also an heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity, and aging--an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared, and her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences.

Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory--and her grip on everyday life. Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, whom she is convinced is missing and in terrible danger.

But no one will listen to Maud--not her frustrated daughter, Helen, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son, Peter. Armed with handwritten notes she leaves for herself and an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth and save her beloved friend.

This singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present. But the clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II.

As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of Sukey's disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?

From the Back Cover

Maud is forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and doesn't remember to drink it. She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognizable--or her daughter, Helen, seems a total stranger.

But there's one thing Maud is sure of: her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of it.

Because somewhere in Maud's damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old mystery. One everyone has forgotten about.

Everyone, except Maud . . .

A page-turning story of suspense, Elizabeth Is Missing hauntingly reminds us that we are all at the mercy of our memory. Always compelling, often poignant, and at times even blackly witty, this is an absolutely unforgettable novel.

Review Quotes

"Ingeniously structured and remarkably poignant.... A riveting story of friendship and loss that will have you compulsively puzzling fact from fiction as you race to the last page." - Kimberly McCreight, New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, Where They Found Her, and A Good Marriage

"Maud Horsham, the narrator of Emma Healey's spellbinding first novel...is aware that she's slipping into dementia.... It's a sad and lonely business watching your identity slowly slip away. But even at the end, Maud insists on making herself heard and understood." - New York Times Book Review

"[A] knockout debut.... Ms. Healey's audacious conception and formidable talent combine in a bravura performance that sustains its momentum and pathos to the last." - Wall Street Journal

"Spellbinding." - New York Times Book Review

"Elizabeth is Missing will stir and shake you: an investigation into a seventy-year-old crime, through the eyes of the most likeably unreliable of narrators. But the real mystery at its compassionate core is the fragmentation of the human mind." - Emma Donoghue

"This is no conventional crime novel but a compelling work that crosses literary genres. Maud's experience of dementia is harrowing at times, especially in comparison to her completely lucid moments. The two mysteries at the heart of the book, too--one experienced as a girl and the other as an elderly woman--are brilliantly handled. The result is bold, touching and hugely memorable." - Sunday Times (London)

"A compelling read, Elizabeth is Missing offers added depth of mystery and suspense along with aptly portraying a family trying to cope with illness." - New York Journal of Books

"Not only have we several genres in the one novel, we have two main themes. How it feels to experience dementia, and a page-turner of a detective story. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be beautiful. It is a gripping thriller, but it's also about life and love: the love of an exasperated daughter for her mother; the love of sisters and of friends and the love I felt for Maud." - The Independent (London)

"Part mystery, part meditation on memory, part Dickensian revelation of how apparent charity may hurt its recipients, this is altogether brilliant." - Booklist (starred review)

"British author Healey draws on her own grandmothers' experiences to create the distinctive narrator of her first novel... an absorbing tale." - Publishers Weekly

"This novel genuinely is one of those semi-mythical beasts, the book you cannot put down." - Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotter's Club

"A thrillingly assured, haunting and unsettling novel, I read it at a gulp." - Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

"Elizabeth Is Missing is every bit as compelling as the...hype suggests.... The novel is both a gripping detective yarn and a haunting depiction of mental illness, but also more poignant and blackly comic than you might expect." - The Observer (London)

"A gripping mystery...this bears comparison to A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and S. J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep. - The Bookseller, "Ones to Watch"

"Healey is able to imagine and empathize on such a level because she's simply a brilliant writer. Let's hope we hear much more from her over the years." - BookPage

"Maud's memory is failing, slipping further away each day. So how can she convince anyone that her best friend is truly missing?...A poignant novel of loss." - Kirkus Reviews