The Moment She Was Gone : A Novel [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Evan Hunter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 2002

It's two o'clock in the morning when Andrew Gulliver gets a phone call from his mother, who tells him his twin sister, Annie, is gone. This is not the first time. Ever since she was sixteen, she's been taking off without notice to places as far distant as Papua New Guinea, then returning unexpectedly, only to disappear yet another time, again and again and again.

But this time is different.

Last month, Annie got into serious trouble in Sicily and was briefly held in a mental hospital, where an Italian doctor diagnosed her as schizophrenic. Andrew's divorced mother refuses to accept this diagnosis. Andrew himself just isn't sure. But during the course of a desperate twelve hours in New York City, he and the Gulliver family piece together the past and cope with the present in a journey of revelation and self-discovery. Recognizing the truth at last, Andrew can only hope to find his beloved sister before she harms herself or someone else.

"The Moment She Was Gone," a shattering novel of a family confronting its collective secrets, marks the high point in a writing career spanning almost five decades.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's an axiom of fiction as well as real life that a phone that rings in the middle of the night rarely portends good tidings. For Andy Gulliver, the protagonist of Evan Hunter's gripping new novel, it usually means that his peripatetic twin sister, Annie, is gone again, along with her tenuous hold on reality. Annie has been disappearing with no warning and reappearing just as unexpectedly ever since her adolescence, when she ran off to Sweden to find her first love, a boy she met on an earlier trip abroad with her family. However, the real, if unconscious, object of her search, as Hunter makes clear, is the father who abandoned the Gullivers years before. Annie's occasional postcards and letters from places as far-flung as Nepal and New Guinea offer just enough reassurance to enable Andy and their mother to maintain the illusion that there's nothing really wrong with her. Annie's increasing mental deterioration, like her family's implacable denial, is brilliantly depicted, and drives the narrative to its heavily foreshadowed but still shocking conclusion. Hunter, a master of suspense, is the author of 20 novels as well as countless police procedurals and detective stories, all of which are marked by the psychological acuity that suffuses this, his latest. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Hunter tracks a woman's slow descent into the depths of schizophrenia through the eyes of her twin brother in his latest, a melodramatic novel that offers some suspense at the start before it slides into a series of mawkish, overwrought scenes in which Hunter picks apart the dynamic of an ill-fated, dysfunctional Jewish family. Andrew Gulliver is the first-person narrator, a New York teacher who learns that his flighty, erratic sister, Annie, has disappeared, leaving her family with no clue as to her destination or whereabouts. The initial momentum of that conceit quickly dissipates when Hunter embarks on a long, extended flashback in which he outlines Annie's previous disappearances. Most of her escapades are at least familiar, with the most obvious cliches being a trip to India to study with a yogi as well as a debacle in a Georgia bar with a libidinous redneck who turns out to be a cop. The adventure that leads to real trouble is a visit to Sicily, where Annie encounters several amorous locals and ends up being hospitalized after a nervous breakdown as a questionable drug treatment accelerates her schizophrenic tendencies. Hunter wears his heart on his sleeve in his compassionate, heartfelt prose, but the lengthy passages in which he dissects the family take the air out of the climax when Annie finally turns up. The book has a few effective sequences, particularly when Annie attacks Andrew's wife with a hammer and Andrew turns to his divorced spouse years later for support when Annie disappears. Those moments aside, this represents a drop-off in quality from Hunter's usually crisp, illuminating prose, and longtime readers and fans are likely to be disappointed.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER @ TRADE (July 17, 2002)
• ISBN-10: 1131831136
• ISBN-13: 978-1131831138
• ASIN: B000F6Z7VQ
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,129,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Empathy for the Families of the Mentally Ill, June 26, 2003

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Moment She Was Gone : A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

As a psychiatrist with forty years experience, I was awe-struck by the impressive insight shown in this novel by veteran writer Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain). He demonstrates extraordinary awareness of the almost unbearable difficulties that the loving families of severely mentally ill persons often endure. His focus is purposely on the response of the family, not the inner experience of the sick family member, and this aspect of this all-too-common situation has received scant attention in fiction.

The narrator of the book is the twin brother of a young woman whose erratic behavior has been written off as merely eccentric for years until she is placed in an Italian hospital during an 'episode,' as it's referred to, and his and the family's initially grudging recognition of the extent of her illness. The narrator himself finds that he has powerful resistance to accepting the validity of her diagnosis. I hesitate to say more for fear I will spoil the suspense that Hunter so carefully sets up in his tersely written novel, but suspect you will not be able to put this book down once you've started it.

I have intense admiration for Hunter's ability to describe what I have seen so many times in my own practice. I have repeatedly observed the kinds of self-protective distortions and myths that grow up in families about the ill family member, defenses that usually finally have to give way to crushing reality. I've so often seen the emotional price they pay trying to help their loved one. Hunter writes about this with compassion and understanding.

I would also recommend a recent non-fiction account with a similar theme: "The Outsider: A Journey into My Father's Struggle with Madness" by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer, also available here at Amazon.

Scott Morrison

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant - just don't expect a typical Hunter/McBain book, December 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Moment She Was Gone : A Novel (Hardcover)

I think the bad reviews are coming from readers already familiar with the popular novels of Evan Hunter/Ed McBain. If you want the 87th Precinct, this ain't it.

But what it IS is brilliant. The book deals with some very real (and hard to like) characters dealing with mental illness, which seems to run in the family, based on the way all the characters act. It's dark, emotional, and frankly scary - to contemplate the horror of living with a loved one dealing with this illness.

It's such a departure from most of his body of work that I was amazed that he had this sort of book in him. My recommendation is to read this as if it were written by a new novelist you've never heard of, and only if you enjoy dark, emotional writing that investigates the complex undercurrents of a dysfunctional family. This is NOT cheerful stuff. But it's amazingly real, at least to me. I've known people like this, and the author NAILS their personalities.

I also strongly recommend the audio version of this book - narrator Dan Futterman does an amazing job of capturing the stilted voices and mannerisms of this uptight, denial-ridden family.

It's a pity this book is being panned like this, but I'm convinced it's because the readers wanted more of the "same old same old" from Hunter. He definitely did not deliver that. But for readers willing to explore a dark, challenging topic in a story filled with some very flawed but very human characters, I recommend this highly.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful departure but good, March 10, 2003

By 

Robert Busko (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Moment She Was Gone : A Novel (Hardcover)

I agree is one of the other reviewers. If you're looking for the Evan Hunter of decades past, don't read this book. You'll be disappointed. However, if you're interested is a powerful story of mental illness and denial, then buy The Moment She Was Gone and read it. I have long been a fan of Evan Hunter. The Moment She Was Gone is a fitting departure from his normal work. I applaud him for having the courage of a different vision.
I was easily able to identify with most of the characters in this novel. That is a testament of Mr. Hunters ability to tell a story and develope characters that are interesting and believable. Buy this book and read it. A great weekend read.