Lost

by Joy Fielding

When her estranged daughter Julia, a model and aspiring actress, returns years after deciding to live with her father, Cindy finds her home life disrupted by Julia's willful and self-absorbent behavior, but when Julia disappears mysteriously, Cindy fears that the worst may have occurred. (Suspense)

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Canada, Crime

528 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

Joy Fielding (née Tepperman; born March 18, 1945) is a Canadian novelist and actress. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, she graduated from the University of Toronto in 1966, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. As Joy Tepperman, she had a brief acting career, appearing in the film Winter Kept Us Warm (1965) and in an episode of Gunsmoke. She later changed her last name to Fielding (after Henry Fielding) and began writing novels.
Fielding is also the screenwriter of the television film Golden Will: The Silken Laumann Story.

At the age of 8, Joy Tepperman wrote her first story and sent it into a local magazine, and at age 12 sent in her first TV script, however both were rejected. She had a brief acting career, eventually giving it up to write full-time in 1972. She has published to date 22 novels, two of which were converted into film. Fielding's process of having an idea to the point the novel is finished generally takes a year, the writing itself taking four to eight months. Joy Fielding sets most of her novels in American cities such as Boston and Chicago. She has said that she prefers to set her novels in "big American cities, [as the] landscape seems best for [her] themes of urban alienation and loss of identity. Fielding is a Canadian citizen. Her husband's name is Warren, and they have two daughters, Annie and Shannon. They have property in Toronto, Ontario, as well as Palm Beach, Florida.

Fielding had an interview with the Vancouver Sun in 2007, just after her publication of Heartstopper. She enjoys catching readers off guard with the endings of her stories, but insists that "[it] isn't what her fiction is about", but rather more about the development of her characters. Discussing her novels with the Toronto Star in 2008, she said "I might not write fiction in the literary sense. But I write very well. My characters are good. My dialog is good. And my stories are really involving. I'm writing exactly the kind of books I like to write. And they're the kind of books I like to read. They're popular commercial fiction. That's what they are."

Fielding has been noted as a novelist who is more popular in the United States and foreign countries, rather than in her native Canada. For example, the novel Kiss Mommy Goodbye was more popular in the States, and See Jane Run in Germany. In addition, she had an American agent and publisher, although she has now switched to a Canadian publisher.

Reviews

[Margie Morris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a pretty stupid book. I wonder if Fielding couldn't figure out which direction to go,it seems she threw so many disconnects out that never did really tie up even at the end. She made Cindy (the mother) in the story a complete nut case, and if she wrote the "Lost" daughter's name once she injected it a thousand times.She couldn't seem to find enough places to inject a bunch of cuss words from the context she threw them in it was just an excuse for her to print them. All the characters in this book are anal, and the story sucks. I would not recommend this book to my worst enemy.

[Carl Alves · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is hard to like a book when none of the characters are likeable. That is the case in this book. Julia Carver is a beautiful, young, aspiring actress who disappears after trying out for a role in Toronto. She is self-centered, narcissistic, and has no redeemable characteristics. Her mother, Cindy, jumps off the handle, doesn’t think anything through, and is overall really annoying. None of the side characters are likeable either.

As if that wasn’t enough, this is a long, dull, uninteresting book. There are an overabundant amount of flashbacks that add nothing to the story. There is very little actually going on in the story, and most of what is written is superfluous and unnecessary. This is novel could easily be cut in half and not miss anything. I didn’t like much about this novel, and was just hoping that it would end soon. It was painful and not worth reading. This is a novel you will want to skip.

Carl Alves – author of Reconquest: Mother Earth

[Annemarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book easy to read and I did enjoy it. However, I think this is mostly down to me reading it in the hospital and having nothing better to do. I don't think I would have been as interested in different circumstances, the suspense was not enough for that.
I also have to say, I'm rather disappointed and underwhelmed by the ending...

[Melissa (Semi Hiatus Until After the Holidays) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Total waste of my time. Not worth reading. Daughter disappears and the ending made me want to throw the book at the wall.

[Terry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would not have finished this book except it was a book club selection. It is very difficult to read a book when you don't like
the main character or believe in the problem put forward in the plot.
In my opinion, the mother, needed professional psychiatric care.
I get it that the mother felt bad that her daughter had chosen to live with her father when her parents were divorced. What I don't get is how upset she was when her adult child didn't come home one night. It was obvious that her daughter was a selfish, self absorbed person. Although she was 21, she still seemed to act like a selfish teenager. There was no indication that she was involved in drugs or with a bad crowd AND her father didn't seem worried. The daughter had only lived with the mother for a short time because the father's new wife didn't feel there was room in their 5000 sq. ft. condo for the daughter anymore. Even if you want to think that the new wife was a bitch, it tells you something about the daughter too.
Because the mother was so crazily worried the first few days, it was
even hard to think something might be wrong after two weeks had passed.
I feel bad that this was my first introduction to this author, because it will also be my last. I noticed several reviews by people who obviously liked this author's books, that this was far from their favorite. Too bad it was my first.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

I still remember reading this book, and not in a good way. I slogged it out to the end, and was thoroughly disappointed. I won't give away spoilers, but I will say that the story dragged with a let down for an ending. I wouldn't recommend it. If you read this book, make sure you are somewhere that you are happy even if you didn't have a book to read, for instance: the beach.... and that you have alcohol to drink. Then this book might be less painful to read, or you might just be able to laugh when you reach the last page due to the warm environment and alcohol you've consumed because, remember, you'll already be in your happy place.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 rounded up
I usually love Joy Fielding books but this one didn't work for me. It was all over the place and not a likeable character at all.

[Audrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really unlikeable characters throughout this book. The story itself is fairly interesting, but it is hard to get into it since several of the main characters are incredibly self-absorbed and the others are pathetically "in their shadow". I wish the author had done a better job as this story has potential. In summary, I suggest you forget this book and go read a good one.

[Lois Logsdon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book until the last 10 pages. I thought it was a stupid ending.

[Nina Draganova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Да, невероятен разказвач е авторката, хване ли те в мрежата си, няма пускане.
Така стана и с тази , дълго отлагана книга, държа ме будна до зори.
Забелязвам някакво смекчаване в историите й, явно и тя се е уморила от прекалено страшни истории.
Може би финала ми беше малко слаб и неадекватен, но няма пълно щастие.

[Johnnie Gee · Rating 1 out of 5]

As much I have enjoyed Joy Fielding's other books, I disliked this one. It was tedious, to say the least, and if the words "Julia", "Mother" in response to one another became a mantra.

None of the characters are very likable, Cindy, the mother is a complete nut case as is her daughter Julia. The rest of the supporting cast isn't a lot better. The ending was transparent and disappointing, even though all was revealed and explained, which I like.

If you have nothing to else to read then you are stuck with this, if you have something else to read, I would suggest that.

The other Joy Fielding books that I have read are four and five stars. This one not so, it was a confusion of events that were tedious.

[Tricia Dower · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had never read a Joy Fielding novel before and wondered what she has that consistently makes the best selling list. I guess it's mostly plot because the writing in this book is plodding and the characters are one-dimensional. Maybe some people like everything laid out explicitly for them, as well, because this book isn't the least bit subtle. A real disappointment.

[Kathy Cherney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrible ending!!!

[Roxann Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay my fellow readers, this was one of Joy's earlier works, well done, kept my interests; definitely had acouple of twists I didn't see coming, over-all loved it. There is a common thread in all her reads, one character is always a lawyer, love the perspective. Recommend.

[Jill S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a real page-turner but despite it being fast-paced, the characters were so dislikable that I couldn't give it more than 3 stars. The protagonist, her daughter, and several supporting characters were all so annoying, selfish, and vapid that I couldn't stand them.

[Dara S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the best Joy Fielding book.

[Svenja · Rating 2 out of 5]

An easy read but man the ending was one of the most unsatisfactory endings I’ve read in a long time. Kind of made me regret even reading the whole book.

[Lisa Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cindy 21 year old daughter Julia just vanishes. Her mother is about to loose her mind This story shows the anguish her mother goes through

[June Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was on the second to last page that I realized I had read this book previously. I imagine I enjoyed it as much the first time as I did just now. Joy Fielding is definitely one of my favourite writers. She never disappoints. Recommended if you enjoy this genre.

[Ursula Pflug · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review first appeared in The Peterbrough Examiner in October 2003.

LOST
by Joy Fielding
Doubleday Canada
372 pages
$35.95

review by Ursula Pflug
487 words


Best selling author Joy Fielding writes in a casual contemporary voice, familiar and accessible. Her new novel Lost is so last year in Toronto it feels as if one is reading about one’s own life, a trick Margaret Atwood employs to good use as well. Readers will find ample references to the Toronto International Film Festival, the novel’s backdrop, and to the remembrance of 9/11. Everyone, Fielding’s protagonist Cindy muses, remembers exactly where they were when they heard the news.

Cindy, a divorced mother in her early forties, describing that day, says that at the time she couldn’t imagine anything worse happening. But then it does, and this time, the nature of the apocalypse is personal and not political; Cindy's older daughter Julia, a twenty-one year old aspiring actress, disappears.

Cindy goes into panic mode and stays there for days; the police are brought in, and we are introduced to Julia's father, a philandering entertainment lawyer. Cindy’s life is further complicated by the severe postpartum depression of her neighbour Faith. Faith’s husband Ryan, it turns out, is also less than loyal; and due to various odd occurrences the couple makes it onto Cindy’s suspects list. Cindy’s near and dear ones wonder whether she is going overboard in stereotypical hysterical female fashion, but Cindy is exonerated as new facts emerge and the detectives on the case pay the neighbours a visit.

Cindy has a rather dreadful time of things, but the reader feels that in spite of her constant fear, she has the love of her wonderful mother and her irritating but still very supportive sister; longstanding and close girlfriends, and the possibility of a fabulous new guy.

Fielding’s page turning novel reads like a mystery but is actually an extended meditation on motherhood; Cindy, in spite of her comfortable middle class life, has had her share of hardship, and spends most of her time doing things for, and worrying about others. By the end of the novel she learns at last, and at ample cost, that she needs to take some time and space for herself. Oh yes, and that fabulous guys really do exist, after all. Which is my only quibble with the book. Neil Macfarlane is handsome, sexy, funny, kind, ethical, and smitten with Cindy and not her daughters or someone nearer their age, which Cindy, unsurprisingly, considering her marital history, at first finds hard to believe. Mcfarlane, it strikes me, is drawn as wish fulfilment. I’ve noticed this as well in some of the enormously popular novels of US writer Barbara Kingsolver; perhaps these amazing fictional men account in part for the authors’ popularity. Still, I found myself wishing at times he wasn’t quite so perfect, a little more human. As it was, in a book full of characters likeable for all their realistic foibles, Macfarlane stood out as being a little less than real, or is that more?

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave this two stars because it was as bad as it promised to be, and, in its way easy to read. It's really more like a 1.5 stars deal to me. It was like reading a lifetime movie, which is the kind of crap I've need at the moment to make it through some personal highly-stressful situations.

That said, this is the third Joy Fielding I've read and I don't know how she creates these people, but they are the most shallow, obnoxious, irritating creatures to inhabit the planet. Worse than that, though, is the writing style. The main character, whose twenty-one-year old daughter disappears after an audition with a famous movie director, has flashbacks and memories throughout the novel, and they are presented in a way that interrupts the narrative. (Example: they are all told in present tense, which is kind of ironic for flashing back, put in parentheses and begin with A Title where the First Letter of Each Word is Capitalized.) I found myself dreading these and looking ahead to see just how long I'd have to sit through them. They are irritatingly frequent.



The main character in the novel, Cindy, has an inner life that isn't too well presented, either; mainly it's her thinking "what kind of mother am I that I didn't know my daughter's friends?" and similar questions. Her sister, we are told, is overbearing and always has to have a worse situation than Cindy's - and then the bulk of her characterization revolves around this. Most of the characters seem to fall into this pattern - they have one or two traits that Fielding uses; they are simplistic, depthless people. There's a lot of concern about what people look like, what kinds of clothes they're wearing, and people who are not some Hollywood standard of fit are created as irritants and mean people, while all the main characters are "pretty" and "handsome" and "gorgeous."

The ending isn't terribly surprising, either, but there is some guessing involved. Oh and there is one rant that Cindy makes to her blind date about the label "women in jeopardy"- she goes on and on about how every novel and every story is a woman in jeopardy story; that's LIFE, after all; without jeopardy nothing is interesting. Her date sees the light: I never thought about it that way!. It seems so out of place that one can't help but wonder if Fielding has been accused of writing women-in-jeopardy novels. Let's face it, that label is derogatory and refers to a certain kind of shallow, cheap entertainment without literary merit. Not that it doesn't have its value - I mean, I sped through this book because I needed to be preoccupied during some rough days, but it's not like reading Sara Gran's Dope, where a woman is definitely in jeopardy, and yet the writing and the characters are so well done I actually felt for them and cared about what happened to them.

[Astrid Jakobs · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

An anticlimactic ending, an unlikeable main character, and frankly, kind of boring. Still, I didn't actively hate it. It passed the time okay.

[Lisa Lilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book in 3 days. It's definitely a page turner. Cindy Carver's 21-year-old daughter Julia, with whom she has a difficult relationship to say the least, disappears. The relationships and tensions between Cindy, both her daughters, her ex-husband, and her sister and mother are well-developed. I particularly felt for the younger daughter, Heather, who tends to get lost in shuffle given the high drama that surrounds Julia even before she goes missing. Joy Fielding does a wonderful job at playing out the suspense, presenting several potential, and believable, suspects and interweaving story lines. I identified with Cindy's frustrations with her daughters and fears about what happened to Julia. But I had trouble sympathizing with her still being stuck on her ex-husband. She is seven years post-divorce, and he cheated on her throughout the marriage. She seems to take that as her own failing rather than his, and has very low self esteem. Between that and her fainting or being about to faint quite often, I didn't enjoy her character as much as other women heros. Still, it was a compelling story, and I recommend it.

[Jennifer]

DNF

I trudged through a few hours of this book. Normally love Joy Fielding, but this was really bad. Grown children behaving like bratty teenagers, treating their mother like crap, their mother allowing it. The mother making a face whenever someone mentions her ex, making the children call him for her, referring to his new wife as a cookie. The whole thing was incredibly immature. I have a grown child, and an ex who has a new wife, and this is NOT how any of us behave.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found the novel okay. The story drags on a bit and some of the characters are SO annoying. I enjoyed the story in a way (I just love all stories), but couldn't wait to finish the book so I can move on to a next one.

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such a waste. Of course I finished the book because I wanted to know if it was going to end the way I expected and of course it did. Predictable. Characters lacked substance and were all ridiculous and self absorbed.

[callie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like Joy Fielding, but not my favorite from her. The ending was unexpected I have to admit.

[Kathy Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fast enough read but the ending is horrible!! Definately one of Fielding's worst.

[Jjean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not find this book interesting - it seemed to be so "wordy" about nothing - slow reading, hoping it would get better...........

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only giving it 2 stars bc I liked the dog and try to keep 1stars to a minimum. Other than that, I hated(HATEDDD) this book.