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museoffire's review
5.0
This small literary triumph written by an author no one has ever heard of when I bring it up has been in my top five best modern novels list since I first read it years ago. And I read a lot people.
I quote the New York Times review a lot when I try to explain how good this book is.
"A haunting first novel that takes a horrifying family calamity and turns it into a form of magic."
One quiet summer day 15 year old Ethan Shumway disappears. In the days, months, and years that follow the reader follows his family, through the eyes of Ethan's younger brother Philip struggle, survive and ultimately live with the worst nightmare any family could be confronted with.
That's it.
There's no real mystery here, the book is NOT about what happened to Ethan or why he vanished or how his abductors paid the price. Its about loss and learning how to go on when your questions don't have any answers and there is no closure.
Fredrick Reiken, one of the single most gifted writer's out there today and oh god how I wish he were more prolific, chose well in his protagonist, the budding writer Philip. Awkward, desperately lonely without his beloved older brother, and struggling to find a way to make sense of what is happening around him Philip becomes obsessed with finding clues to his brother's disappearance and its his journey toward accepting not only Ethan's loss but the not knowing what has happened to him that is the crux of Reiken's tale.
Reiken's supporting players, the Shumway family, Ethan's mentor the crazy leader of an artist community, and his beloved girlfriend are all wonderful grey people with terrible tempers and talent and emotions who populate a world that any reader will be at home in.
The Shumway family falls apart, rebuilds and even finds happiness again after the loss of their eldest son and Philip himself finds his way out of the forest of his grief and confusion towards a kind of acceptance with life and all its unfairness. He will spend the rest of his life "not looking" for Ethan, of this the reader is sure, but he will find the space to live his own as well.
I quote the New York Times review a lot when I try to explain how good this book is.
"A haunting first novel that takes a horrifying family calamity and turns it into a form of magic."
One quiet summer day 15 year old Ethan Shumway disappears. In the days, months, and years that follow the reader follows his family, through the eyes of Ethan's younger brother Philip struggle, survive and ultimately live with the worst nightmare any family could be confronted with.
That's it.
There's no real mystery here, the book is NOT about what happened to Ethan or why he vanished or how his abductors paid the price. Its about loss and learning how to go on when your questions don't have any answers and there is no closure.
Fredrick Reiken, one of the single most gifted writer's out there today and oh god how I wish he were more prolific, chose well in his protagonist, the budding writer Philip. Awkward, desperately lonely without his beloved older brother, and struggling to find a way to make sense of what is happening around him Philip becomes obsessed with finding clues to his brother's disappearance and its his journey toward accepting not only Ethan's loss but the not knowing what has happened to him that is the crux of Reiken's tale.
Reiken's supporting players, the Shumway family, Ethan's mentor the crazy leader of an artist community, and his beloved girlfriend are all wonderful grey people with terrible tempers and talent and emotions who populate a world that any reader will be at home in.
The Shumway family falls apart, rebuilds and even finds happiness again after the loss of their eldest son and Philip himself finds his way out of the forest of his grief and confusion towards a kind of acceptance with life and all its unfairness. He will spend the rest of his life "not looking" for Ethan, of this the reader is sure, but he will find the space to live his own as well.
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