Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2024
208 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
Blending memoir with social history, Clair Wills movingly explores the gaping holes in the fabric of modern Ireland, and in her own family story.
When Clair Wills was in her twenties, she discovered she had a cousin she had never met. Born in a mother-and-baby home in 1950s Ireland, Mary grew up in an institution not far from the farm where Clair spent happy childhood summers. Yet Clair was never told of Mary's existence.
How could a whole family—a whole country—abandon unmarried mothers and their children, erasing them from history?
To discover the missing pieces of her family's story, Clair searched across archives and nations, in a journey that would take her from the 1890s to the 1980s, from West Cork to rural Suffolk and Massachusetts, from absent fathers to the grief of a lost child.
There are some experiences that do not want to be remembered. What began as an effort to piece together the facts became an act of decoding the most unreliable of evidence—stories, secrets, silences. The result is a moving, exquisitely told account of the secrets families keep, and the violence carried out in their name.
"A searing yet nuanced investigation into the lives of complicit relatives, such as her mother, as well as tender portraits of those affected. The author's prose is stellar; her cadence complements this compelling tale, which grew increasingly complex over years of meticulous research...Fascinatingly, viscerally haunting." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"It's a devastating reckoning with cruelty and conformity." —Publishers Weekly
"An expertly crafted work, at once vigorous and subtle, which manages its effects and conserves its revelations with all the skill of a master novelist." ―The Guardian
"The stories [Wills] uncovers are remarkable: touching, tragic, terribly human...Her book, written with care, wit and vulnerability, shows that ordinary tragedies deserve our anger and attention too." ―The Times (UK)
"Not just a vivid, compelling account of Clair's family and ancestry, but an intriguing snapshot of Ireland's social history ... rigorously researched ... empathetic." ―Irish Independent
"Clair Wills shines a brilliant, unsparing light into the dark recesses of her family's history―and the history of Ireland. Missing Persons is a stunningly eloquent exploration of how truth-telling, secret-keeping, and outright lies are part of all family stories―indeed, the stories that unite all communities―and how truths, secrets and lies can both protect and destroy us." ―Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moon
"Clair Wills retrieves from time's abyss a speculative history of universal import. This is a penetrating and affecting study, essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the profound contradictions, the secrets and lies that define post-famine Ireland." ―Paul Lynch, author of Prophet Song
This information about Missing Persons was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Clair Wills is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain, named the Irish Times International Nonfiction Book of the Year, and That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War, winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize, among other works. She is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. She lives in London.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: The power to see, to sense, and to say. ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
