This is a fun, page turner novel
about real stuff that was recommended to me by the owner of Shakespear and Co.
Books in Missoula. It’s told from the point-of-view of the daughter Bee of
Bernadette, who has disappeared. Bee has gotten a hold of correspondence and
other documents related to events leading up to her mother's disappearance. So,
much of the novel is a sequence of emails, hand written notes, memos, and other
documents, which is an unusual format for a novel, but it works.
The main characters are Bernadette, Bee, the husband/father Elgin, who is a brilliant group leader at Microsoft, and a couple of helicopter moms from Bee’s school. On the one hand, the book is a social commentary about Seattle, and really the Norwest, and really, more broadly, the U.S. Being a Missoulian it hit close to home. At one point Bernadette describes Elgin as a Keen wearing, presidential biography reading, cycling enthusiast, all of which is true for me. Apparently, I'm not as original as I thought.
But it’s also about real family life. Bernadette had been a nationally recognized, McCarthur Genius Grant winning, rising star of architecture before following her husband to Microsoft and Seattle, and having her daughter. She gives everything to raising Bee, neglects her art, and over the course of fifteen years slowly loses touch with herself. Elgin does too, but in a different way, and things finally come to a head, hence the disappearance.
This may sound a bit heavy, it's more of a comedy of errors, and in the end it’s a story of redemption. You’ll laugh. I loved it.
The main characters are Bernadette, Bee, the husband/father Elgin, who is a brilliant group leader at Microsoft, and a couple of helicopter moms from Bee’s school. On the one hand, the book is a social commentary about Seattle, and really the Norwest, and really, more broadly, the U.S. Being a Missoulian it hit close to home. At one point Bernadette describes Elgin as a Keen wearing, presidential biography reading, cycling enthusiast, all of which is true for me. Apparently, I'm not as original as I thought.
But it’s also about real family life. Bernadette had been a nationally recognized, McCarthur Genius Grant winning, rising star of architecture before following her husband to Microsoft and Seattle, and having her daughter. She gives everything to raising Bee, neglects her art, and over the course of fifteen years slowly loses touch with herself. Elgin does too, but in a different way, and things finally come to a head, hence the disappearance.
This may sound a bit heavy, it's more of a comedy of errors, and in the end it’s a story of redemption. You’ll laugh. I loved it.
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