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People Who Are Lost : A Novella
Leann sells Volvos and recently had her Uncle Ron move in with her. She's having an affair with her boss, Ed, who claims to have an agoraphobic girlfriend, Kelly.
Leann decides Ed is a loser and ends the affair. She feels bad about it and decides to tell Kelly everything. But when she gets to Ed's house she finds Kelly behind a barred window claiming she's being held against her will.
Kelly ends up coming home with Leann, who doesn't know what to do with the stray girl. Everything Leann thought she knew about Ed, about Kelly, seems to be wrong. Kelly claims Ed is a sadistic murderer who kidnapped her years ago. Ed claims Kelly is a mentally ill nutcase and Leann would be insane for believing a word she said.
All of this and a 55-gallon oil drum is pulled out of the swamp. The news reports that a girl encased in concrete has been found inside. Kelly claims it was one of Ed's victims, that she saw it happen.
Leann doesn't know who to believe or what is going on with her life. She regrets she ever had an affair with Ed, sorry she ever let Uncle Ron talk her into bringing Kelly home. All the while Leann wonders who is Kelly? Who is the girl in the barrel? Could either be the missing Genie Fukuwaka, a girl taken six years ago and never found?
Leann decides Ed is a loser and ends the affair. She feels bad about it and decides to tell Kelly everything. But when she gets to Ed's house she finds Kelly behind a barred window claiming she's being held against her will.
Kelly ends up coming home with Leann, who doesn't know what to do with the stray girl. Everything Leann thought she knew about Ed, about Kelly, seems to be wrong. Kelly claims Ed is a sadistic murderer who kidnapped her years ago. Ed claims Kelly is a mentally ill nutcase and Leann would be insane for believing a word she said.
All of this and a 55-gallon oil drum is pulled out of the swamp. The news reports that a girl encased in concrete has been found inside. Kelly claims it was one of Ed's victims, that she saw it happen.
Leann doesn't know who to believe or what is going on with her life. She regrets she ever had an affair with Ed, sorry she ever let Uncle Ron talk her into bringing Kelly home. All the while Leann wonders who is Kelly? Who is the girl in the barrel? Could either be the missing Genie Fukuwaka, a girl taken six years ago and never found?
- GenresHorror
160 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 31, 2022
1 person is currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Bedlam
92 books245 followersElizabeth Bedlam is a writer of satire, dark humor, and low-brow literary fiction. She has been featured in anthologies and zines that you've probably never heard of including Anti-This/Anti-That, Low Life, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Soiled Purity.
Her most-read works include Rabbit Skin Glue and Lucy the Satanist. She has been praised for her realistic depictions of neurotic females.
Elizabeth is a Michigan native. She currently lives and writes from Melbourne, AU.
Correspond!
Instagram: @elizabeth.bedlam or @swann.bedlam
Email: elizabethbedlam@gmail.com
Website: swannbedlam.com
Her most-read works include Rabbit Skin Glue and Lucy the Satanist. She has been praised for her realistic depictions of neurotic females.
Elizabeth is a Michigan native. She currently lives and writes from Melbourne, AU.
Correspond!
Instagram: @elizabeth.bedlam or @swann.bedlam
Email: elizabethbedlam@gmail.com
Website: swannbedlam.com
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 14, 2024
For a bleak novel People Who are Lost is so much fun. The writing is excellent and the characters are somehow both funny and incredibly sad. This is my third Elizabeth Bedlam novel; I already can't wait for my fourth.
September 4, 2022
Uh-oh!
September 1, 2022
Weird, hilarious and amazing.
September 3, 2022
'Quite literally, just left 'lost' in my own little world!'
Another fantastic, dark and twisty fictional story from EB that once again highlights poor mental health issues, sexual abuse and murder, with the light this time shining brightly on personal relationships and missing persons within the community.
Welcome to Leann's palace - a young woman thrust into a grim world completely dominated by loss, dangerous uncaring attitudes and a whole heap of weird, twisted and completely insane logic and reasoning. Throw in several unsolved mysterious disappearances and a woman determined to find some closure, whilst righting some wrongs, and you have a maelstrom of chaotic events that just meld into a melee of madness.
Lots of dark humour, fantastic dialogue and great characters give it the unique Bedlam brand of creative and imaginative storytelling which all delivers to produce a wondrously strange, but clever original piece of fiction that cannot fail to fascinate and entertain.
Ending was good, though was left searching a little for those final few pieces of rich malice and spite to take shock and horror gratification levels into an even higher orbit. Damn, will have to wait til next time!
Highlights: Burger collection and dessert pizza making will live long in the memory!
Recommended, especially to readers who want to try something a little different.
Rating: 4.2 mirthful dark stars of 'lost' sin and insanity.
Another fantastic, dark and twisty fictional story from EB that once again highlights poor mental health issues, sexual abuse and murder, with the light this time shining brightly on personal relationships and missing persons within the community.
Welcome to Leann's palace - a young woman thrust into a grim world completely dominated by loss, dangerous uncaring attitudes and a whole heap of weird, twisted and completely insane logic and reasoning. Throw in several unsolved mysterious disappearances and a woman determined to find some closure, whilst righting some wrongs, and you have a maelstrom of chaotic events that just meld into a melee of madness.
Lots of dark humour, fantastic dialogue and great characters give it the unique Bedlam brand of creative and imaginative storytelling which all delivers to produce a wondrously strange, but clever original piece of fiction that cannot fail to fascinate and entertain.
Ending was good, though was left searching a little for those final few pieces of rich malice and spite to take shock and horror gratification levels into an even higher orbit. Damn, will have to wait til next time!
Highlights: Burger collection and dessert pizza making will live long in the memory!
Recommended, especially to readers who want to try something a little different.
Rating: 4.2 mirthful dark stars of 'lost' sin and insanity.
November 6, 2022
I figured anything written by a lady named Bedlam would be a non-stop, in-your-face, going off the rails on a crazy train cannonball, so I was surprised and delighted to find PWAL equal parts working class neo-realism, modern mystery/noir, and John Waters-style black comedy of manners.
The tale of a struggling young auto sales associate who may or may not be on the trail of a long-missing kidnap victim, Ms. Bedlam writes in a non-fussy, it-is-what-it-is style that at first appears effortless, but in fact requires oodles of narrative control. And she manages to infuse every page with a tone that's simultaneously funny, tragic, and banal. As an amateur detective, Leann is the protagonist we all fear ourselves to be: tormented by the horror rubbed in your face by tabloid culture, committed to justice in the abstract, and wanting to do the right thing, yet endlessly exhausted by the mundane shit the world dumps on you, and a genetic inability to get off your ass.
Is Leann herself crazy, or just not motivated enough to dig herself out of all the crazy surrounding her? Ms. Bedlam doesn't give us any easy answers, and she doesn't push this to something you can laugh off as an R-rated cartoon. It's way too grounded in hardscrabble reality.
The tale of a struggling young auto sales associate who may or may not be on the trail of a long-missing kidnap victim, Ms. Bedlam writes in a non-fussy, it-is-what-it-is style that at first appears effortless, but in fact requires oodles of narrative control. And she manages to infuse every page with a tone that's simultaneously funny, tragic, and banal. As an amateur detective, Leann is the protagonist we all fear ourselves to be: tormented by the horror rubbed in your face by tabloid culture, committed to justice in the abstract, and wanting to do the right thing, yet endlessly exhausted by the mundane shit the world dumps on you, and a genetic inability to get off your ass.
Is Leann herself crazy, or just not motivated enough to dig herself out of all the crazy surrounding her? Ms. Bedlam doesn't give us any easy answers, and she doesn't push this to something you can laugh off as an R-rated cartoon. It's way too grounded in hardscrabble reality.
September 30, 2024
This book has so much weirdness going on, you never know what to believe. The characters are one of a kind. It's weird, ist strange but it's really suspenseful and well written. I like this a lot.
December 17, 2022
This book was a little too slow for me. The characters were great. The storyline was frustrating. I just couldn’t get into it but I keep reading to see if it got better. It didn’t. Just not for me, but I could see how some people might enjoy it for it’s quirkiness.
January 12, 2025
The best way for me to describe this was that this book caused an itch that it did not scratch for me. It was very unsatisfying and frustrating to read. It was a good book, a very interesting concept. I just kept hoping and waiting for the MC to finally do something and in the end, when she did, it was like oh ok…that’s it? Also, if you read the description of the book, it tells you basically the entirety of the first 100 pages so don’t. Please don’t even get me started on the grammatical & spelling errors though.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Alright so this crazy lady who basically stole her life just gets to live in her old apartment? I understand why it was easier for her to not fight back with these mentally ill people but it was just infuriating (which is how the MC felt and in turn how we were supposed to feel). I just couldn’t sit with that feeling and it almost was like the MC didn’t care as much I cared LOL.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Alright so this crazy lady who basically stole her life just gets to live in her old apartment? I understand why it was easier for her to not fight back with these mentally ill people but it was just infuriating (which is how the MC felt and in turn how we were supposed to feel). I just couldn’t sit with that feeling and it almost was like the MC didn’t care as much I cared LOL.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews