by Ian McEwan
First published 1997
Stephen Lewis writes children's books, but he cannot protect his own child. His young daughter disappears in a busy London supermarket while he shops with her. The police search. Neighbors help. Days turn into weeks. Stephen's wife retreats into silence and grief. Their marriage begins to crack under the weight of loss and blame. Stephen refuses to give up. He walks the streets, follows leads, questions strangers. The search becomes an obsession that pulls him back into memories of his own childhood. He starts to question everything he thought he knew about time, about family, about the moments that define us. His wife moves further away from him. His hope grows thinner. Then small connections surface, fragments that might mean nothing or might change everything. Stephen must decide whether to keep searching or learn to live with uncertainty.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: grief, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, Turkey
245 pages · Paperback · Vintage
Content warnings: child-death, mental-illness