Songs For The Missing is one of the more uncomfortable novels I’ve read all year. It’s almost too real. Too close to something we know and hold close to our hearts. Almost invariably we know someone too similar to Kim Larsen. As the weeks pile up and the cadaver dogs are called in we cannot help but feel the helplessness of the Larsen family. What if it were us that this was happening to?
Category Archives: News
2009 Connecticut Book Awards
A biography of a prominent Hartford clergyman and a novel about the devastating effects on a family when their daughter suddenly disappears are among the winners of the 2009 Connecticut Book Awards.
Stewart O’Nan won the fiction award for his novel “Songs for the Missing.”
Songs for the Missing at Costco
from The Costco Connection, September 2009
This fall, you can find copies of Songs for the Missing at your neighborhood Costco.
August 25: Songs for the Missing Paperback
Significant Objects: Duck Tray
Every evening when Henry came home from work, without fail, he set his briefcase on the marble-topped table in the front hall, climbed the stairs to their room, faced the dresser and emptied his pockets before hanging up his jacket and tie and washing for supper. Occasionally one or the other of the children shadowed him as he performed this ritual, eager to obtain a final, binding permission or appeal an earlier verdict of hers, but Emily actively discouraged this, as she discouraged outright lobbying at the table. She tried to make his transition from office to hearth as relaxing as possible, to the extent that she refrained from following him up, even if she’d spent the afternoon fretting over some pressing domestic issue only his considered input could resolve.
The Works of Stewart O'Nan 