The Year of Fog (Bantam Discovery) by Michelle Richmond Paperback Book

Details

Rent The Year of Fog (Bantam Discovery)

Author: Michelle Richmond

Format: Quality Paperback, Unabridged-CD

Publisher: Bantam Books

Published: Feb 2008

Genre: Fiction - Psychological

Retail Price: $14.00

Pages: 416

Synopsis

Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason—photographer, fiancee soon-to-be-stepmother—looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child’s disappearance, and of one woman’s unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love—all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond’s incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight.

Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger’s van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning—and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach.

Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma’s father finds solace in religion and scientific probability—but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all—as the truth of Emma’s disappearance unravels with stunning force.

A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope—of the choices we make and the choices made for us—The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Reviews

BookLender review by Jeanne on 2008-07-11 10:56:39

When I finished the book, I was not sure I enjoyed reading it but maybe enjoy is just the wrong word. It is memorable. A woman in her 30s takes her eyes off a child for a few seconds the child disappears in the fog. We do not know if the child drowned, wandered off, or was kidnapped. This riviting question is unanswered until the end. My own question is whether guilt would drive one to abandon job, family, loved ones, fiance the child's father for a year, going broke in the process, to track down leads, even as far as Central America. She obtains help in the form of a mysterious, handsome, wealthy man who falls for her immediately. If you can accept all this, read the book. It is a well written, introspecitive, intelligent, first-person narrative by an interesting if obscessive person.