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halibut's review
4.0
I really liked Moore's first novel The Lighthouse, and this shares a sense of mundane sort of despair. Memory appears both heavy and absent in equal measure, for Jessie most encounters provoke often award or unwelcome memories, but usually skirting around the edges of the two central absences.
jenni8fer's review
5.0
I really enjoyed this! Alison Moore writes about human relationships so well. This is a novel about human connections and communication.
Missing follows Jessie Noon, a woman nearing age 50 whose husband walked out on her almost a year ago, leaving only a short note written in the steam on the bathroom mirror one morning. Her husband left behind his dog, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, for her to care for and she has her cat. In her hope that he returns, she never changes the locks. He has begun to send her strange unsigned postcards.
Throughout Missing Jessie is reading her third biography of D.H. Lawrence. Jessie gathers from her readings that for Lawrence there was always a sense of two worlds, the old England and the new, the pre- and post-Industrial age, and this world and the 'other' world. Jessie hears noises at night coming from the spare room next to her bedroom which she thinks could be a ghost.
She hasn't seen or talked to her adult son from her first marriage since he left home as a teenager; however, she continues to send him text messages.
One day walking the dog by the river she meets Robert whom she's seen around on other occasions and they begin a relationship. Although, Robert has an uptight disposition which makes him intolerable to Jessie's easy-going, somewhat flighty, nature.
Following each chapter on modern day events is a chapter looking back at Jessie's life at 18 in 1985, caring for her five-year-old niece, Eleanor. Her sister's husband doesn't care for her and it shows. One day a terrible tragedy occurs which reverberates to the present day, causing familial relations to not be as close as they once were.
Missing follows Jessie Noon, a woman nearing age 50 whose husband walked out on her almost a year ago, leaving only a short note written in the steam on the bathroom mirror one morning. Her husband left behind his dog, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, for her to care for and she has her cat. In her hope that he returns, she never changes the locks. He has begun to send her strange unsigned postcards.
Throughout Missing Jessie is reading her third biography of D.H. Lawrence. Jessie gathers from her readings that for Lawrence there was always a sense of two worlds, the old England and the new, the pre- and post-Industrial age, and this world and the 'other' world. Jessie hears noises at night coming from the spare room next to her bedroom which she thinks could be a ghost.
She hasn't seen or talked to her adult son from her first marriage since he left home as a teenager; however, she continues to send him text messages.
One day walking the dog by the river she meets Robert whom she's seen around on other occasions and they begin a relationship. Although, Robert has an uptight disposition which makes him intolerable to Jessie's easy-going, somewhat flighty, nature.
Following each chapter on modern day events is a chapter looking back at Jessie's life at 18 in 1985, caring for her five-year-old niece, Eleanor. Her sister's husband doesn't care for her and it shows. One day a terrible tragedy occurs which reverberates to the present day, causing familial relations to not be as close as they once were.
kenzieleckie_'s review
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
arirang's review
4.0
Now she had to get used to being Jessie Noon again. She could have kept Will’s name of course, the same way she was keeping the dog, but she had gone rather resignedly back to Noon. She could hardly bear to write it though, and did not like to see it; she could not see it without thinking of it handwritten on police statements and printed in the newspapers.
The lovely north Norfolk coastal town of Cromer is most readily associated with its crabs, but with the quality of works coming out from Salt Publishing, increasingly with high quality contemporary British literature as well.
Alison Moore, one of the authors whose careers they have supported, was Booker shortlisted for her debut novel, [b:The Lighthouse|14569975|The Lighthouse|Alison Moore|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1343229153s/14569975.jpg|20212710], and Missing should be in contention for this year's prize - subtle, carefully constructed and quietly effective, it would certainly be a welcome correction to some of the overblown novels that have marred some recent lists.
I came to this book via Salt's #JustOneBook campaign:
Missing is narrated from the perspective of Jessie Noon, almost 50, estranged from her son from her unsuccessful first marriage, living in Hawick in the house where she believes her great-great-grandmother lived in the 19th Century. In Hawick she met and married Will, a train driver, also separated from his first wife, but he abruptly left home in January (it is now November) leaving, rather bizarrely, a note written not on paper but in the steam on their bathroom mirror, and she has an uneasy relationship with her older sister, and particularly with her brother-in-law, who she also hasn't seen since January.
The novel is told in three alternating sections - Jessie's story the months around the end of the year (when she starts a relationship with a local man and is rather comically accused of attempting to seduce her neighbour's teenage son), flashbacks to 1995 when Jessie was 16 and was often called upon to look after her 6 year-old niece Eleanor, and brief 1st person passages from an unnamed narrator who is returning to see Jessie - her son? her husband? Eleanor? someone else? - sending her postcards to announce his visit, the first reading simply “I’m on my way home.”
Jessie is a translator (a process in which what ought to be stable shifted, a phrase that reminded me of mathematical definition of translation) and the importance of language is key to the story:
Her choice made a difference. Sometimes it seemed like a terrible responsibility. Will had agreed that it was important "but choosing this word or that word" he said "is not exactly a matter of life and death". It could be, though, said Jessie. Look she said at PC Sidney Miles and Derek Bentleyand "Let him have it"; look at Eleanor and "Stay outside". You had to be careful.
Moore cleverly combines the mundane domestic details of Jessie's life (frozen peas from the supermarket carefully stored in her lover's freezer before the two of them first fall into bed) with heavily portentous signs, or at least what Jessie sees as such (albeit these are suggestions not so much of what might happen as to what might be about to be revealed to the reader): the ominous postcards, a mystery man in the pub she is keen to avoid, cracks appearing in her house in the walls and windows, noises at night which she believes to be ghosts, stories she is translating all of which have a failure to connect, and the endings seem to hang in the air, discussions of portals and shifts between worlds, and the biographies of D H Lawrence she reads (the characters that Jessie supposed to be him, in fictional form, were always torn between staying and leaving, torn between this world, this life, and another.)
However, this isn't a novel where all is revealed on the last page - we find confirmation, if we hadn't guessed, of what happened in 1985 and also who is writing the postcards just after the halfway point, and while another revelation which explains Will's departure is deferred, it to is explained before the final pages.
Instead the ending hangs quietly in the air, and is all the more effective for it.
The lovely north Norfolk coastal town of Cromer is most readily associated with its crabs, but with the quality of works coming out from Salt Publishing, increasingly with high quality contemporary British literature as well.
Alison Moore, one of the authors whose careers they have supported, was Booker shortlisted for her debut novel, [b:The Lighthouse|14569975|The Lighthouse|Alison Moore|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1343229153s/14569975.jpg|20212710], and Missing should be in contention for this year's prize - subtle, carefully constructed and quietly effective, it would certainly be a welcome correction to some of the overblown novels that have marred some recent lists.
I came to this book via Salt's #JustOneBook campaign:
Dear readers, we need your help. Sadly, we're facing a very challenging time and need your custom to get our publishing back on track. Please buy #JustOneBook from our shop right now https://www.saltpublishing.com/and I would strongly encourage everyone to support this wonderful small independent publisher, ideally by buying books direct.
Salt is one of UK’s foremost independent publishers, committed to the discovery and publication of contemporary British literature. We are advocates for writers at all stages of their careers and ensure that diverse voices can be heard in an abundant, global marketplace.
Missing is narrated from the perspective of Jessie Noon, almost 50, estranged from her son from her unsuccessful first marriage, living in Hawick in the house where she believes her great-great-grandmother lived in the 19th Century. In Hawick she met and married Will, a train driver, also separated from his first wife, but he abruptly left home in January (it is now November) leaving, rather bizarrely, a note written not on paper but in the steam on their bathroom mirror, and she has an uneasy relationship with her older sister, and particularly with her brother-in-law, who she also hasn't seen since January.
The novel is told in three alternating sections - Jessie's story the months around the end of the year (when she starts a relationship with a local man and is rather comically accused of attempting to seduce her neighbour's teenage son), flashbacks to 1995 when Jessie was 16 and was often called upon to look after her 6 year-old niece Eleanor, and brief 1st person passages from an unnamed narrator who is returning to see Jessie - her son? her husband? Eleanor? someone else? - sending her postcards to announce his visit, the first reading simply “I’m on my way home.”
Jessie is a translator (a process in which what ought to be stable shifted, a phrase that reminded me of mathematical definition of translation) and the importance of language is key to the story:
Her choice made a difference. Sometimes it seemed like a terrible responsibility. Will had agreed that it was important "but choosing this word or that word" he said "is not exactly a matter of life and death". It could be, though, said Jessie. Look she said at PC Sidney Miles and Derek Bentleyand "Let him have it"; look at Eleanor and "Stay outside". You had to be careful.
Moore cleverly combines the mundane domestic details of Jessie's life (frozen peas from the supermarket carefully stored in her lover's freezer before the two of them first fall into bed) with heavily portentous signs, or at least what Jessie sees as such (albeit these are suggestions not so much of what might happen as to what might be about to be revealed to the reader): the ominous postcards, a mystery man in the pub she is keen to avoid, cracks appearing in her house in the walls and windows, noises at night which she believes to be ghosts, stories she is translating all of which have a failure to connect, and the endings seem to hang in the air, discussions of portals and shifts between worlds, and the biographies of D H Lawrence she reads (the characters that Jessie supposed to be him, in fictional form, were always torn between staying and leaving, torn between this world, this life, and another.)
However, this isn't a novel where all is revealed on the last page - we find confirmation, if we hadn't guessed, of what happened in 1985 and also who is writing the postcards just after the halfway point, and while another revelation which explains Will's departure is deferred, it to is explained before the final pages.
Instead the ending hangs quietly in the air, and is all the more effective for it.
jackielaw's review
5.0
Missing, by Alison Moore, tells the story of Jessie Noon, a middle aged women living in a Scottish border town who works from home as a literary translator. Jessie has been married twice and has a grown up son. She now lives alone with her cat and dog. She believes her house harbours a ghost. She tries to keep her thoughts and feelings in order by following daily and weekly routines.
Much of the action involves the ordinary: Jessie attends a professional conference, shops for groceries, walks her dog, enters into a new relationship. Throughout there exists an undercurrent of darkness, gaps in the narrative. The sense of unease is palpable.
Interspersed with the contemporary tale are chapters set in 1985 when Jessie was eighteen. Her big sister, Gail, would call on her sibling to mind her five year old daughter, Eleanor. Although sometimes resentful of the expectation that she would help, Jessie was fond of the little girl. She did not always treat her as Gail requested, giving Eleanor cola to drink and making promises she couldn’t keep. Jessie’s relationship with her family is now strained.
At the heart of the tale are the words people use, so often misconstrued causing pain. Jessie struggles to maintain relationships despite her desires and good intentions. She understands how people regard her but cannot change what has been done or said. Others choose to leave or cut contact. Jessie may have moved location but must still find ways to live with herself.
There is a tension in the writing, a disconnect between the personal world Jessie inhabits, the expectations of those she encounters, and her desire to somehow fit in. When a postcard arrives telling her ‘I’m on my way home’ it is unclear who is sending or where home may be. The reader is offered glimpses but the portrayal of Jessie remains elusive. Subliminally she may believe her treatment by others is deserved.
This is a glorious evocation of alienation and misunderstanding. Jessie could be deemed tragic but she is also a survivor. The author has created a masterpiece. A haunting tale of devastating insight and depth.
Much of the action involves the ordinary: Jessie attends a professional conference, shops for groceries, walks her dog, enters into a new relationship. Throughout there exists an undercurrent of darkness, gaps in the narrative. The sense of unease is palpable.
Interspersed with the contemporary tale are chapters set in 1985 when Jessie was eighteen. Her big sister, Gail, would call on her sibling to mind her five year old daughter, Eleanor. Although sometimes resentful of the expectation that she would help, Jessie was fond of the little girl. She did not always treat her as Gail requested, giving Eleanor cola to drink and making promises she couldn’t keep. Jessie’s relationship with her family is now strained.
At the heart of the tale are the words people use, so often misconstrued causing pain. Jessie struggles to maintain relationships despite her desires and good intentions. She understands how people regard her but cannot change what has been done or said. Others choose to leave or cut contact. Jessie may have moved location but must still find ways to live with herself.
There is a tension in the writing, a disconnect between the personal world Jessie inhabits, the expectations of those she encounters, and her desire to somehow fit in. When a postcard arrives telling her ‘I’m on my way home’ it is unclear who is sending or where home may be. The reader is offered glimpses but the portrayal of Jessie remains elusive. Subliminally she may believe her treatment by others is deserved.
This is a glorious evocation of alienation and misunderstanding. Jessie could be deemed tragic but she is also a survivor. The author has created a masterpiece. A haunting tale of devastating insight and depth.
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