Persephone Books discussion

Hi, is anyone else reading Still Missing this month? I'm still making my way through the story, but I was pleased to recently see someone recommend it on Twitter as a must-read suspense story.

From the Persephone reviews page:

"In a discussion on BBC Radio 4′s A Good Read, Harriet Gilbert calls Still Missing: ‘the most page-turning novel. But what I find interesting is that we can all describe this as a page-turner when it is about something unimaginably painful.’

‘Persephone Books has found in Still Missing a quite remarkable book. It is a novel so gripping and completely imagined that you dread putting it aside. The story is that of 34-year-old Bostoner Susan Selky. She has recently separated from her husband but, in the private world of her narrow brick house, is happy enough to make a life around her son. Until, that is, 15 May 1980 – the day when six- year old Alex disappears. What follows is not a detective story, although Gutcheon supplies a first-rate cop. Al Menetti is a family man, and cannot quite fathom the artsy preferences of Susan’s ilk ( “where the Selkys lived, it looked to him that what people thought about was abortions and yoga and eating out in restaurants”). Nevertheless, he throws himself into the Selky case, following it down paths that grow increasingly dark. Yet this is not a thriller, although it will have you hooked. Nor is it (as it could so easily have been) an enervating study in emotional torture and suspended lives. At the end of Still Missing, you feel less as though you have shared an ordeal with Susan than accompanied her through something that is almost beyond words: quiet, profound and life-altering. The secret is Gutcheon’s style: she is, it seems, a fundamentally interested author, genuinely keen to know how her characters feel and will react. This is not to say she is unsophisticated – just the reverse – but that her book is somehow brightly alert to itself. Flaubert thought that the author should be everywhere and nowhere in his work; Gutcheon, marvellously, seems present on every page. All the expected elements of a missing-child story are here, the twists, the turns, the ending that is perfect and piercing.’ Stephanie Cross The Lady"

I read it a few years ago. I thought it was quite different from the "typical Persephone" but I really enjoyed it.

Rosemary wrote: "I read it a few years ago. I thought it was quite different from the "typical Persephone" but I really enjoyed it."

The more Peresphones I read, the less sure I am what's typical :). But I agree -- suspense doesn't make me think Persephone.