WHAT WAS LOST
by Catherine O’Flynn
Holt Paperbacks
On Sale Now
Paperback
256 pages
ISBN: 9780805088335
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DESCRIPTION
A tender and sharply observant debut novel about a missing young girl --- winner of the Costa First Novel Award and long-listed for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and The Guardian First Book Award.
In the 1980s, Kate Meaney --- “Top Secret” notebook and toy monkey in tow --- is hard at work as a junior detective. Busy trailing “suspects” and carefully observing everything around her at the newly opened Green Oaks shopping mall, she forms an unlikely friendship with Adrian, the son of a local shopkeeper. But when this curious, independent-spirited young girl disappears, Adrian falls under suspicion and is hounded out of his home by the press.
Then, in 2003, Adrian’s sister Lisa --- stuck in a dead-end relationship --- is working as a manager at Your Music, a discount record store. Every day she tears her hair out at the outrageous behavior of her customers and colleagues. But along with a security guard, Kurt, she becomes entranced by the little girl glimpsed on the mall’s surveillance cameras. As their after-hours friendship intensifies, Lisa and Kurt investigate how these sightings might be connected to the unsettling history of Green Oaks itself. Written with warmth and wit, WHAT WAS LOST is a haunting debut from an incredible new talent.
AUTHOR BIO
Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham, England, in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ candy store. She has been a teacher, Web editor and mystery customer --- and this, her first novel, draws on her experience of working in record stores. After spending several years in Barcelona, she now lives in Birmingham.
EXCERPT
She’d been staring at the words for so long, they were bled of meaning. Hobbies and Interests. What did it mean? Technically it wasn’t actually a question, and it was only the two inches of white space below that would clue you into the fact that the words were supposed to elicit a response. Maybe she could just write something equally ambiguous as a response: “Good,” or “Hello,” or “Yes.” It was a trap, but the thing with these traps was to act as if you didn’t realize it was a trap. Lisa knew that writing, for example, “I find hobbies and interests take up valuable time that could be better spent developing top-notch merchandising skills in store” would be too obvious. She also knew that even if she had any interests, to list them honestly would be disastrous, a clear compromise of her commitment.
After twenty-three minutes of staring at the three words, she had a flash of inspiration and wrote: “Shopping and reading magazines.” So simple. And true! They would be delighted that her life truly was that small.
Excerpted from WHAT WAS LOST © Copyright 2008 by Catherine O’Flynn. Reprinted with permission by Holt Paperbacks. All rights reserved. Back to the top
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