How to Be Lost: A Novel
by Amanda Eyre Ward
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Book Summary Information
Author: Amanda Eyre WardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-08-30
ISBN: 0345483170
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of How to Be Lost: A Novel
Book Review: Had My Imagination on Fire
Summary: 5 Stars
"How to Be Lost" by Amanda Eyre Ward is a lean, cinematic novel that can easily be read in one sitting. The novel is organized into a series of first-person narratives, letters, and flashbacks. There are multiple story lines with shifts in place and time. Ward's writing is sparse: there are no unnecessary scenes. The telling is easy and captivating, but this can be deceptive. Ward's clean, efficient prose demands attention.
In this story, we read about Joseph and Isabelle Winters, two parents sunk in despair, alcohol, and disappointment. They are lost to themselves, each other, and their children. The parents' isolation has gut-wrenching effects on the lives of their three children: Caroline, Madeline and Ellie. Despite all the bad, there is enough good left in this family for each girl to thrive. When the girls are 16, 13 and 5, tragedy strikes. Ellie, the youngest child, disappears--probably abducted. This shatters the two remaining girls and further destroys what little remains of the parents' lives.
The book begins 15 years later. Joseph has passed away and Isabelle is a mere shadow of the woman she could have been. The family is estranged. The girls reluctantly gather at their mother's home for Christmas. Madeline's psychologist has recommended that she "bring closure" to the disappearance of her little sister by pronouncing Ellie legally dead. The mother and Caroline are against it. They still hold hope that Ellie is alive. The mother compulsively combs through magazines looking for photographs that might reveal Ellie as a 20-year-old woman. One magazine snapshot in particular has Isabelle captivated, and she shows it to Caroline.
Eventually, Caroline takes off on a cross-country trip to find the woman in the photograph. Along the way, we meet more fascinating lost souls, and through flashbacks, letters, and dream sequences, we are whipsawed through mysterious, seemingly unrelated story lines dealing with other lost souls. The reader is propelled through the novel in ever-deepening suspense--always a little off-balance--trying to figure out where all these story lines are going. Eventually they converge in an ending that does not surprise as much as it unfolds--quietly promising and fully satisfying.
This is a book that you will keep remembering long after you put it down. The characters demand rethinking--some are mere outlines necessary for plot development; others are deeply drawn and achingly real. Virtually all are lost souls. I found that I really cared about these people, even the ones sketchily drawn. Long after I finished, I found my imagination on fire. Perhaps this is what the author intended--that the reader participate in the story telling by creating their own back-stories and futher plot resolutions. I like that--an author demanding the participation of the reader. I will definitely look for more work by this author in the future.
Summary of How to Be Lost: A Novel
Joseph and Isabelle Winters seem to have it all: a grand home in Holt, New York, a trio of radiant daughters, and a sense that they are safe in their affluent corner of America. But when five-year-old Ellie disappears, the fault lines within the family are exposed: Joseph, once a successful businessman, succumbs to his demons; Isabelle retreats into memories of her debutante days in Savannah; and Ellie s bereft sisters grow apart Madeline reluctantly stays home, while Caroline runs away.Fifteen years later, Caroline, now a New Orleans cocktail waitress, sees a photograph of a woman in a magazine. Convinced that it is Ellie all grown up, Caroline embarks on a search for her missing sister. Armed with copies of the photo, an amateur detective guide, and a cooler of Dixie beer, Caroline travels through the New Mexico desert, the mountains of Colorado, and the smoky underworld of Montana, determined to salvage her broken family.
Sometimes an off-key phrase in a soulful song can wrench at the heart, nay, the soul and send one off into that same far-away place that a great book can take you to. Amanda Eyre Ward's second novel, How to Be Lost, provides for the reader with a finely-tuned ear, a nicely wrought, syncopated, octave-changing story. Featuring a hard-living, almost down-on-her-luck narrator, How to Be Lost isn't lost at all when it comes to telling a literary mystery wrapped in the arms of a strong woman's tale. Ward's story bounces between New Orleans and New York, taking her protagonist, Caroline, into steely encounters with her somewhat-estranged family, especially her older sister and mother, as they continue, many years after the fact, to deal with the wrenching effects of the unresolved disappearance of Ellie, the youngest of the Winters family. Readers may find uncanny similarities between the eerie tone and dark nature of Deborah Schupack's The Boy on the Bus but won't be disappointed at all with the story that unfolds and the clever, darkly humorous nature of Ward's pitch-perfect voice. --E. Brooke Gilbert
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