Vanished

This book broke my heart! Tragic people whose lifes intertwine. I could not put this book down. It haunts me still.

How does one attempt to relate to you how engrossing this story is? There are some strong emotions and issues going on with this story. Briefly, the story revolves around a young female con-artist, Dottie, who by chance (and only chance) happens upon a slow witted man, Aubrey Wallace. Aubrey has a (bitter) wife and family of his own, but is constantly berated and harrassed by her. Aubrey and Dottie link up in a freak meeting and he is literally overwhelmed..from that moment on he is under her control and she takes every advantage of it. A young toddler, Cannie, gets snatched right out of her own house and from under her distracted mother. Suddenly, the toddler finds herself a new mother and father. Her new mother is but an immature, self-centered child herself and only took the child for use as a smoke screen to avoid her past. For mentally challenged Aubrey, his heart rules his head in many instances, and he genuinely grows to love and adore Cannie, as Cannie grows to love him and believes both of them to be her parents. A child's allegiance is strong, and this bond introduces disastrous consequences. Years pass as they remain homeless and always trying to keep one step ahead of detection by the law. Their life is pathetic and heart wretching. As the situtions become more complicated, Aubrey struggles with right and wrong, love and abuse. All the time you are reading, you know at some point the deception has to end. The ending is a surprise and extremely intense. You will find yourself torn with loyalties and attachments on both sides of the issue. Mary McGarry Morris is brilliant

Finally, a place to say my piece about "Vanished," which I read several years ago and which had a huge, huge effect on me. I've read it twice and listened to it on Recorded Books, Inc. (read by the incomparable Barbara Rosenblatt). Each time I sort of hoped I wouldn't go through the trauma I did at its ending. The first time, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. I cried so hard, I thought my heart would break. In fact, I kept getting weepy over it for weeks following, at odd moments. It would just sort of pop up in my mind. But the second time I read it I thought, good, I was expecting this, and I'm not going to go through that same exhausting catharsis. Then I found myself standing at my ironing board next day and whoosh! up came the tears. I would put it on a par with "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison; another heart-wrenching classic about unfairness and the violation of the innocent. When I heard it read on tape, I was again walloped. For sheer experiential reading, this is IT. As one of your writers said, it should have been nominated for big literary prizes. Indeed, I think it deserves the Pulitzer at the very least. Morris's strength is her absolute refusal to stereotype. As a writer myself, I know what hard work that is; either that or, as I suspect, the woman is simply a genius - as such, she gets it right without having to try. Mary, if you read this, you have a diehard fan here in santa fe, new mexico. I always tell anyone who asks about the books I recommend, that you are the greatest. I loved them all!! (and my name is Martha, so needless to say, I identified with "A Dangerous Woman, which I thought was very well brought off in the movie. Deborah Winger was a surprisingly fabulous Martha!) Do you ever e-mail your fans? As a (so far) unpublished novelist, I could use a writer's encouragement. Oh - and encore, please,encore!

It was better. I just got finished reading the book and I can't begin to describe in words what I experienced, only that it was engrossing and extremely well written.

Vanished is Mary McGarry Morris' masterwork, a complex and entrancing story of a man caught outside the life of his community who is suddenly torn from his hometown by forces he can't fully comprehend. Oddly, most of what he doesn't comprehend is personified by the girl who "kidnapped" him -- a wily, scheming, insecure girl who runs because she has to. Morris, relatively unknown before Oprah picked up on her most recent best-seller, "Songs in Ordinary Time," is an author who began writing late in life. Her long experience in a world beyond the bounds of rarified "literary" fiction shows in her compassion for her main characters. In Vanished, her insight is most marked when she refuses to give definite reasons for things. Instead, she allows the emotional weight of an event to compound until its consequences become inevitable. In this book, so many things disappear -- but they always leave traces. Traces of hope, and of desire. In this book, an arbitrary escape turns into a four year odyssey. But it's not the typical trip out of contemporary fiction, full of drugs, sex, and lost weekends. Instead it's a simple journey, replete with attempts at security and love, emptied of cynicism or sardonic humor. Thus, the terrific ending comes as a shock, and yet feels right after all. How else could such an extraordinary journey conclude but with the unexpected? Winner of the Pen/Faulkner Prize, this book beats Morris' "Oprah"-Recommended "Songs in Ordinary Time," hands-down