THE SPECIAL POWER OF RESTORING LOST THINGS

The moving story of a family suffering the loss of their eldest daughter.

Set on Manhattan's Upper West and Lower East sides, this gripping novel spans the days leading up to the one-year anniversary of Jennifer Bauer's disappearance, during which a body that may be the young woman's is discovered. In the year since she went missing, her brother, Ben, has become obsessed with the end of the world, her mother, Carol, has become self-destructive, and her father, Drew, has become austere. Each is falling apart, and each is reaching into the past for fortitude: Ben toward Jennifer's unwholesome friends, Carol toward Jennifer's abductor, and Drew toward his own memories. As the hours pass, these family members lose control of themselves, searching for ways to cope. Though their methods differ—Ben takes drugs and drinks, Carol wears Jennifer's clothes and calls herself by Jennifer's name, Drew walks for miles—they are all drawn to Inferno, the club where Jennifer was last seen. It is there that the novel's crescendo culminates. Mauk (Orion's Daughters, 2014, etc.) writes in a smooth and stirring prose which brings the horror of grief and resentment acutely near.

A sensitive portrayal—psychologically powerful but never overplayed, deftly conveying the human truth that not everything turns out OK.