VANISHED [Paperback]

Mary McGarry Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1989

A tragic novel which centres on the dilemma of "poor whites". It features a man on the road with a vagrant girl and a small child which is not hers. The three finish up where they began - lost!

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Morris's "strong and painful" first novel, Aubrey Wallace, a simple, good-hearted laborer on a Vermont road crew, falls for Dotty--cute, tarty, amoral and utterly freaked-out--who lures him away from his family to a wandering, criminal half-life on the road, with a kidnapped child in tow. "The story drives inexorably to its cynical and wrenching climax, fueled on booze, drugs and human misery," noted PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

For five years, a shy, backward man travels the country with a wild young woman and a kidnapped child, living by stealing and by selling stolen goods. Helpless Aubrey Wallace does not have the courage or the know-how to escape the situation in which he is trapped with the sexually abused Dotty Johnson, who has brutally killed her father and stolen 18-month-old Canny. Aubrey, attached to Canny, shows her as much love and care as he can, letting Dotty call all the shots. The tragedy in this bizarre, intriguing first novel is a child's exposure, in her most formative and impressionable years, to a life of violence. But for Canny there is hope: she could be returned to her natural parents. For Aubrey and Dotty, there is no hope left. Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (September 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671679430
• ISBN-13: 978-0671679439
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,255,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intense drama, June 20, 2000

By 

Janice M. Hansen (California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vanished (Mass Market Paperback)

How does one attempt to relate to you how engrossing this story is? There are some strong emotions and issues going on with this story. Briefly, the story revolves around a young female con-artist, Dottie, who by chance (and only chance) happens upon a slow witted man, Aubrey Wallace. Aubrey has a (bitter) wife and family of his own, but is constantly berated and harrassed by her. Aubrey and Dottie link up in a freak meeting and he is literally overwhelmed..from that moment on he is under her control and she takes every advantage of it. A young toddler, Cannie, gets snatched right out of her own house and from under her distracted mother. Suddenly, the toddler finds herself a new mother and father. Her new mother is but an immature, self-centered child herself and only took the child for use as a smoke screen to avoid her past. For mentally challenged Aubrey, his heart rules his head in many instances, and he genuinely grows to love and adore Cannie, as Cannie grows to love him and believes both of them to be her parents. A child's allegiance is strong, and this bond introduces disastrous consequences. Years pass as they remain homeless and always trying to keep one step ahead of detection by the law. Their life is pathetic and heart wretching. As the situtions become more complicated, Aubrey struggles with right and wrong, love and abuse. All the time you are reading, you know at some point the deception has to end. The ending is a surprise and extremely intense. You will find yourself torn with loyalties and attachments on both sides of the issue. Mary McGarry Morris is brilliant

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Unknown Novelist Strikes Gold, June 27, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: VANISHED (Paperback)

Vanished is Mary McGarry Morris' masterwork, a complex and entrancing story of a man caught outside the life of his community who is suddenly torn from his hometown by forces he can't fully comprehend. Oddly, most of what he doesn't comprehend is personified by the girl who "kidnapped" him -- a wily, scheming, insecure girl who runs because she has to.

Morris, relatively unknown before Oprah picked up on her most recent best-seller, "Songs in Ordinary Time," is an author who began writing late in life. Her long experience in a world beyond the bounds of rarified "literary" fiction shows in her compassion for her main characters.

In Vanished, her insight is most marked when she refuses to give definite reasons for things. Instead, she allows the emotional weight of an event to compound until its consequences become inevitable. In this book, so many things disappear -- but they always leave traces. Traces of hope, and of desire.

In this book, an arbitrary escape turns into a four year odyssey. But it's not the typical trip out of contemporary fiction, full of drugs, sex, and lost weekends. Instead it's a simple journey, replete with attempts at security and love, emptied of cynicism or sardonic humor.

Thus, the terrific ending comes as a shock, and yet feels right after all. How else could such an extraordinary journey conclude but with the unexpected?

Winner of the Pen/Faulkner Prize, this book beats Morris' "Oprah"-Recommended "Songs in Ordinary Time," hands-down

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest ever written., October 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Vanished (Mass Market Paperback)

Finally, a place to say my piece about "Vanished," which I read several years ago and which had a huge, huge effect on me. I've read it twice and listened to it on Recorded Books, Inc. (read by the incomparable Barbara Rosenblatt). Each time I sort of hoped I wouldn't go through the trauma I did at its ending. The first time, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. I cried so hard, I thought my heart would break. In fact, I kept getting weepy over it for weeks following, at odd moments. It would just sort of pop up in my mind. But the second time I read it I thought, good, I was expecting this, and I'm not going to go through that same exhausting catharsis. Then I found myself standing at my ironing board next day and whoosh! up came the tears. I would put it on a par with "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison; another heart-wrenching classic about unfairness and the violation of the innocent. When I heard it read on tape, I was again walloped. For sheer experiential reading, this is IT. As one of your writers said, it should have been nominated for big literary prizes. Indeed, I think it deserves the Pulitzer at the very least. Morris's strength is her absolute refusal to stereotype. As a writer myself, I know what hard work that is; either that or, as I suspect, the woman is simply a genius - as such, she gets it right without having to try. Mary, if you read this, you have a diehard fan here in santa fe, new mexico. I always tell anyone who asks about the books I recommend, that you are the greatest. I loved them all!! (and my name is Martha, so needless to say, I identified with "A Dangerous Woman, which I thought was very well brought off in the movie. Deborah Winger was a surprisingly fabulous Martha!)

Do you ever e-mail your fans? As a (so far) unpublished novelist, I could use a writer's encouragement. Oh - and encore, please,encore!