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The Missing Tim Gautreaux 9780307270153 Books

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The Missing Tim Gautreaux 9780307270153 Books

All of Gautreaux's books are excellent, but I think this is the best. Beginning fittingly on history's largest stage of overblown revenge, World War I, The Missing quickly moves to Gautreaux's favorite setting, rural and riparian Louisiana of the 1920's (see The Clearing) . His story is one of love and hate, of utter brutality and wonderful kindness and charity. There is much violence, but it is not gratuitous. As is true in Gautreaux's work since the great short story "Floyd's Girl," family, and not just nuclear family, is the core value even when that value is twisted into a motive for revenge. We are our brother's keeper, even if he is not our biological brother.

Some reviewers object that the ending seems bland and anticlimactic, but it is precisely the ending that the novel has been building toward throughout. The ending these reviewers seem to want would render the novel morally incoherent.

Along the way the reader will gather a great deal of knowledge about steamboats, about music, and about life in Louisiana in the 1920's. A great novel.


Tags : The Missing [Tim Gautreaux] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The author of The Clearing</i> (“the finest American novel in a long, long time”—Annie Proulx) now surpasses himself with a story whose range and cast of characters is even broader,Tim Gautreaux,The Missing,Knopf,0307270157,Kidnapping;Fiction.,Missing persons;Investigation;Fiction.,World War, 1914-1918;Veterans;Fiction.,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Investigation,Kidnapping,Literary,Missing persons,Veterans,World War, 1914-1918

The Missing Tim Gautreaux 9780307270153 Books Reviews

While the storyline is absorbing, I was mostly enchanted with Gautreaux's ability to evoke life on a Mississippi river boat during the 1920's. Parallel stories of loss, and the need to decide whether vengeance is the right response to that loss, made this an unforgettable read. Gautreaux's prose is unpretentious, yet elegant; the novel, a joy from start to finish.
The Missing pulls you in at the first line and doesn't let go until the last. It's the story of Sam Simoneaux, a good man becoming a great man. Mr. Gautreaux weaves this vivid story like a master craftsman. You can almost hear the jazz, smell the river and feel the sun beating down on your back, his writing is that tactile. Put on some soft jazz, pour yourself some iced tea, and sit down with The Missing. You'll be transported to another time and place, and be thoroughly entertained.
I loved this book. I have not read anything of Tim Gautreaux's before but I am now looking forward to reading his 1st book The Clearing. All the reviews are spot on (Alan Warner The Guardian, Saturday 11 April 2009; Malena Watrous The New York Times, Sunday Book Review, 3 April 2009 and Ron Charles Washington Post Staff Writer, 11 March 2009) and I can't say better than the reviewers have. The Missing is written in an old fashioned linear narrative style which I enjoy - it has a great plot, great characters & is written in a lyrical and poetic prose style that reminded me of Pat Conroy's writing. The story ranges from the ravages of 1st World War French battlefields to a river boat on the Mississippi and into the hinterland beyond. Gautreaux has written about the world of the American south in the hard 1920s and about the wonderful jazz music which people flock onto the riverboat to dance to. Its a story about loss and the futility of the endless loop of choosing revenge over forgiveness.
Any one that has not read Tim Gautreaux is missing one of the truly great current American authors. In this book, as well as "The Clearing", he has captured the soul of what it is to be human, and what it is in the human experience that produces people that have little or no connection with the human race.

I simply cannot express how tender, violent and real the experiences Mr. Gautreaux creates in the human experience.

You must read this gentleman's writings. He simply does not get the attention he should receive in literary circles.
This is truly a great novel! It is a little lengthy, but it is worth the time reading it. Once I started reading the novel, I had a hard time putting it down. The plot is excellent and I highly recommend it to any reader. It is a great read young adults and higher; not too difficult to read and not too difficult to understand.

Gautreaux's descriptions of setting and landscapes are truly a marvel. One can literally see everything that is happening in the novel all of the time! Not a typical story where a man's life is perfect and nothing goes wrong; quite the contrary!

Highly, highly recommend!!
Great book. Gautreaux's best novel.
The book's central character, Sam, was orphaned in his own childhood by the murder of his family and later became entwined in the tragedies of other children -- a French child whose house Sam accidentally destroyed in WWI and another kidnapped from her parents and sold to a childless couple. Sam sets out on an odyssey to find the kidnapped child and repair his own life. The odyssey takes him up and down the Mississippi River on a showboat and through the backwoods of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

Much of the book addresses questions of revenge, whether revenge can repair the damage done to Sam and the others. Not to give away the story, but the story of the French child neatly frames the story and provides perspective for Sam's own confrontation with revenge and just punishment.
I love everything I've read by this author. He has a great gift for creating memorable characters. His description of life on the Mississippi and what it was like in the day of the riverboats is fascinating. I had never thought about how dirty and polluted it must have been back then, when people dumped any and every thing into the waters. Life itself was dirty and hard, and no one had ever heard of pollution or conservation. When Tim Gautreaux writes, he puts you there - you see, smell, taste, hear and feel the story as it unfolds.
All of Gautreaux's books are excellent, but I think this is the best. Beginning fittingly on history's largest stage of overblown revenge, World War I, The Missing quickly moves to Gautreaux's favorite setting, rural and riparian Louisiana of the 1920's (see The Clearing) . His story is one of love and hate, of utter brutality and wonderful kindness and charity. There is much violence, but it is not gratuitous. As is true in Gautreaux's work since the great short story "Floyd's Girl," family, and not just nuclear family, is the core value even when that value is twisted into a motive for revenge. We are our brother's keeper, even if he is not our biological brother.

Some reviewers object that the ending seems bland and anticlimactic, but it is precisely the ending that the novel has been building toward throughout. The ending these reviewers seem to want would render the novel morally incoherent.

Along the way the reader will gather a great deal of knowledge about steamboats, about music, and about life in Louisiana in the 1920's. A great novel.