Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey.
Viking 2014
I have decided that my new look blog should include notes on
things I have read as reading takes up much more of my time than it used
to. They will not be formal book
reviews, just notes and comments.
A friend lent me this book before Christmas. I have now finished reading it, as has my
husband who reads much more quickly than I do.
I have to say I think it should come with a health warning for readers
over seventy years old as the narrator is an elderly woman with dementia that
gets progressively worse as the book goes on.
The story is advertised as a detective story. It certainly has a mystery at the centre of
it, a mystery which the narrator has been trying to solve for seventy years. The story combines the narrator’s current
life and her determination to solve the mystery despite her dementia, with a
narrative set just after the second world war which talks about how the mystery
occurred.
The author is young and I wondered how she managed to
identify with the narrator but I have just seen that she has dedicated the book
to both her grandmothers so perhaps she does have experience of the elderly and
dementia. She often addresses modern
issues through the eyes of her daughter which gives the book a contemporary
feel. All in all, I would recommend
it. I plan to keep an eye open for other
things she has written.
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