The Sweet Relief of Missing Children

By Braunstein, Sarah

Publishers Summary:
"A magnificent debut filled with characters so vivid, strange, and richly imagined, you emerge feeling changed."—Sarah Shun-lien BynumIn New York City, a girl called Leonora vanishes without a trace. Years earlier and miles upstate, Goldie, a wild, negligent mother, searches for a man to help raise her precocious son, Paul, who later discovers that the only way to save his soul is to run away. As the narrative moves back and forth in time, we find deeper interconnections between these stories and growing clues about Leonora—this missing girl whose face looks out from telephone poles and billboards—whom one character will give anything to save. The Sweet Relief of Missing Children is a suspenseful novel about the power of running and the desire for reinvention. It explores the terror and transcendence of our most central experiences: childhood, parenthood, sex, love.

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ISBN
978-0-39307-659-2
Publisher
Norton


REVIEWS

Library Journal

Reviewed on December 1, 2010

In her first novel, Braunstein, a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, gives us a complex and multifaceted study of children who conquer bad childhoods—and children who cannot. Leonora is a good girl from a good family; she's cautious, studious, and obedient. Her family had supplied a code word that any stranger must know before she follows him. Nevertheless, she agrees to help the wrong stranger, and soon her picture is appearing...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

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