We Disappear: A Haunting Kansas Mystery of Missing Children, Meth Addiction, and Mothers and Sons (P.S.)

Scott Heim's We Disappear is another book that's been on my list and on my bookshelf for quite some time to read. I picked it up as an intro to my summer vacation since it was just under 300 pages, but finished it a week later before vacation even got started. I just couldn't put it down. The storyline is a bit of a heartfelt family saga with some mystery tossed in. Scott, a meth addict living in New York, returns to hometown Kansas to care for his dying mother who has cancer. Mom is obsessed, and has been for a long time, with missing children cases, creating scrap books and plastering her walls with newspaper columns and photos. She wants Scott to help her interview people about missing children while pretending that they are collecting information for a book. However, his mother's real intent is to solve a mystery from her own past before the cancer causes her to "disappear," while also continuing her strange obsession. This may all sound a bit bizarre but Heim plays out the storyline in a very natural matter-of-fact way making it not seem as odd as it probably sounds on the back of the book or in my description here. Another integral part that makes this such a good book is Heim's true talent for the written word. There were numerous passages and descriptions that were just haunting and beautiful. His metaphors are fresh and raw and he really digs under the skin of his characters to expose their fragility. Yes, they may sound crazy, high, drunk, stoned, or insane, and…

The use of commas and the sentence structure in the beginning of the book was actually kind of frustrating and choppy to read. Some people I've confided in about this said that the author had done this intentionally to elicit a certain emotion from the reader, but I'm not sure if it did anything for me other than make me put the book down for the first few weeks after I got it. Maybe I'm just stuck up, but I really didn't care for the way the book was written. Eventually picking it back up, I found that Scott Heim once again delivers and eccentric and beautiful, true to life story about human beings. The strength of this story definitely lies in the plot and rising action. My opinion is that the plot and storyline is actually extremely creative and touching, especially when you consider that Scott was inspired to write this after the death of his mother. The brief personal monologue at the end of the story really helped give me perspective on the author, and I can see why he's so well recognized. I'll definitely be picking up more Scott Heim when I get a chance. It was a good story that helped me get through a very tough time in my life, so thanks again Scott.

This novel, the third from Scott Heim, is expertly crafted and emotionally wrenching. It follows Scott, a meth-addicted freelance writer of textbooks, his mother Donna, dying from lymphoma and Dolores, a cancer survivor and Donna's "best friend in the whole world." The other reviews go into detail regarding the plot of the novel, so I won't go into that here. I will only say that Mr. Heim's prose is brilliantly conceived, his characters real and affecting, the dialogue crisp and sure and the overall tone and mood of the book sure to hook the reader and provide a profound emotional experience. Mr. Heim has always written beautiful prose to his disturbing, thought-provoking novels. With WE DISAPPEAR, he has taken his writing to a new level, providing deep, rich layers of characterization and plot and placing them into a very real-world context that is impossible to shrug off. This is, without a doubt, his most accessible novel to date and I hope with the very deepest of sincerity that he will continue to write, publish and gift the world with his imagination. There is a reason why Scott Heim is one of my favorite authors. He consistently gives his readers intelligent, real characters, and is never afraid to let them be who they are, regardless of how difficult it might be to stay with them. That honesty, that fearlessness, makes Mr. Heim a truly GREAT and gifted author.

I liked Mysterious Skin and learned the author also wrote this book. It is ok but story has a lot of similarities to mysterious skin, so much in fact I wouldn’t recommend reading one right after the other.

"We Disappear" is a lovely and haunting novel. It is a compelling portrait of drug addiction and the relationship between a mother and her grown son set within a mystery centered on old family secrets. I found it gripping from the first to last page. Anyone who read "Mysterious Skin", or saw the movie based on that novel, may find it even more interesting, as in some ways it seemed a continuation of that story. Highly recommended!