conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Elizabeth Is Missing about Maud, Part, Starred with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: *Starred Review* Your best friend doesnt respond to calls or knocks on the door. A moving van is loaded with your friends possessions. Your friends son, a nasty, grasping type, seems to have taken over. You report whats going on to the police, to your daughter, to anyone who will listen. No one believes you. You hardly know whether to believe yourself since you know that your memory, lately, has gotten so bad. This is the predicament facing Maud Horsham, a woman who survived the London Blitz and is now sinking into dementia. Part of the wallop of this mystery is that a woman with declining memory and mental powers is placed in the position of detective. This adds to the urgency of her quest, since Maud is battling the condescension of her caretakers, the police, and her daughter as her faculties fade. Another part of the power of this debut novel is that Maud is the narrator; this choice of point of view gives readers a lens on the casual cruelties inflicted on the aging, especially those with dementia. Maud writes everything down, to help her remember clues about her missing friend, and she also writes down how she is treated. Maud focuses on a second mystery as well, the disappearance of her sister, Sukey, after the war. Part mystery, part meditation on memory, part Dickensian revelation of how apparent charity may hurt its recipients, this is altogether brilliant. --Connie Fletcher