A review by befriendtheshadow
Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar

4.0

Beautifully written book. The prose is elegant and crisp, and Matar's voice has an understated and quiet power. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. The story is about the disapperance of Kamal, Nuri's father. Matar is able to express the feeling of something being snatched, with no explanation and no resolution. The characters are then left to search for their own resolutions and come to terms with the disappearance. The plot isn't the most thrilling, and most of the action seems to happen in recollections or just outside of the shot, but the emotion is powerful, and best felt in the simple moments of things that should have been done but weren't: a phone call that should be made that wasn't, a feeling that should have been expressed and that instead was suppressed, that's where the power of the story lies. The image of Naima, the servant, telling the young man Nuri that she would wait by the phone every Sunday, just on the off chance that he would call, was a brilliant image. It was further brought home by the following line from Nuri.

I never did call again.