Hi, Eric. I misread the American title Missing Mom as an mystery novel too
and was expecting something along the lines of JCO's recent young adult novel
Freaky Green Eyes, about a girl whose mother is found murdered. But Missing
Mom can also be about grieving for one's deceased mother. (JCO's mother passed
away recently: I thought some of that was reflected in The Falls). The
British title, however -- Mother, Missing -- does suggest a mystery or a police
procedural novel.
On a lighter note, Ann Tyler's novel Ladder of Years is about a mother
who runs away from home. Her husband and grown children place a Mother Missing
ad in the local newspaper. The family's ad clearly indicates that they don't
know the missing woman very well and can't even agree upon what she looks like
or what she was wearing the day she disappeared. (JCO wrote an Ann Tyler
appreciation recently)
Cyrano
I was just browsing in Waterstone's in London at lunch and surprised to see
the new Joyce Carol Oates novel out here under a slightly different title.
Missing Mom is called Mother, Missing in the UK. I wonder why they decided
to change it. It sounds more like a mystery novel this way I guess, but
that's really not what the content is. There isn't much of a mystery. It's
more about the process of grief and coming to terms with how to exist
parentless in the world (even if you are already an adult)
>>
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