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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Mar 2005, 432 pages
Paperback:
Nov 2005, 448 pages
What happens when you learn you are not who you thought you were? When the people you've loved and trusted suddenly change before your eyes? When getting your deepest wish means giving up what you've always taken for granted? Vanishing Acts explores how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how doing the right thing could mean doing the wrong thing; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat.
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her
ability to tap into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she explores what
happens when a young woman's past -- a past she didn't even know she had --
catches up to her just in time to threaten her future.
Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her
widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her
own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as
Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't
recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes
the world as she knows it.
In shock and confusion, Delia must sift through the truth -- even when it
jeopardizes her life and the lives of those she loves. What happens when you
learn you are not who you thought you were? When the people you've loved and
trusted suddenly change before your eyes? When getting your deepest wish means
giving up what you've always taken for granted? Vanishing Acts explores
how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how doing
the right thing could mean doing the wrong thing; how the memory we thought had
vanished could return as a threat. Once again, Jodi Picoult handles a difficult
and timely topic with understanding, insight, and compassion.
Prologue
I was six years old the first time I disappeared.
My father was working on a magic act for the annual Christmas show at the
senior center, and his assistant, the receptionist who had a real gold tooth and
false eyelashes as thick as spiders, got the flu. I was fully prepared to beg my
father to be part of the act, but he asked, as if I were the one who would be
doing him a favor.
Like I said, I was six, and I still believed that my father truly could pull
coins out of my ear and find a bouquet of flowers in the folds of Mrs. Kleban's
chenille housecoat and make Mr. van Looen's false teeth disappear. He did these
little tricks all the time for the elderly folks who came to play bingo or do
chair aerobics or watch old black-and-white movies with soundtracks that
crackled like flame. I knew some parts of the act were fake -- his fiddlehead
mustache, for example, and the quarter with two heads -- but I was one hundred
percent sure that his ...
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