As befits this lyrical language, Gautreaux presents Simoneaux's journey in near-Biblical terms. He's a seeker, searching for the permanence of family in an increasingly precarious world. At times, Gautreaux makes him a bit too much of a Job, piling on the punishments. It is not enough that his own child die — he must wound someone else's. It is not enough that a little girl be stolen on his watch and that he lose his job — when, against huge odds, he recovers the girl, her mother must blame him for the changes in the child — he must, in fact, be cursed by her dying breath: "Suddenly, she arched her back and cried out, as from a dream, 'It's all your fault.' "
Still, the beauty of the writing and a plot loaded with intricate switchbacks keep the book going. And if occasionally The Missing shudders like an old riverboat, it remains a journey worth taking, the craft sufficient for the load.
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Smooth lyricism, Death watch, Undercover, More 
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In "The Sea Itself," Betsy Sholl writes of a No said to the storm tide: "...such a total No , it became a kind of Yes ,/so the world was suddenly everything at once,/solid and shifty, stormy and calm."
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Providence author and physician Michael Stein has an uncanny ability to make a medical case history read like a novel in his newest book, The Addict (William Morrow, 288 pages, $26). It's not only that he makes us care about the patients whose lives he describes; it's also that he puts himself into the narrative.
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In American prose, there is a plain style, a child of the 20th century, descending from Hemingway and Cather. The best New Yorker writers — James Thurber, Joseph Mitchell, Janet Malcolm — have it.
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Amy Bloom is known for her psychological acuity, especially as it bears on the subject of love. In her new collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out , her characters — often very knowing — are nonetheless surprised by the undertow.
- Infinite pleasure
Admit it, fellow scribblers. You'd sell your soul to come up with an opening sentence like "Of the things we fashioned for them that they may be comforted, dawn is the one that works."
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I bought The Dirt , Mötley Crüe's 2002 autobiography, the day it was published. I got home from the store, sank to the floor, had a nice cry (it had been hot out and my finger hurt), and started reading.
- Lawton and le Carré share their information
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Topics:
Books
, Book Reviews, World War I, The South
