Lost Boy, Lost Girl (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For its high artistry and uncanny mix of dread and hope, Straub's 16th novel, his shortest in decades, reaffirms the author's standing as the most literate and, with his occasional coauthor Stephen King, most persuasive of contemporary novelists of the dark fantastic. This brilliant variation on the haunted house tale distills themes and characters from Straub's long career, including two of the author's most popular creations: Manhattan novelist Tim Underhill (from Koko, Mystery and The Throat) and Tim's friend, legendary private detective Tom Pasmore (from Mystery and The Throat). Written from multiple viewpoints, the narrative shuttles disturbingly through time and space as Tim travels home to Millhaven, Ill., to attend the funeral for his sister-in-law, a suicide. In that small city based loosely on Straub's hometown of Milwaukee, Tim spends time with his callow widowed brother, Philip, and his nephew, sensitive Mark, 15, who found his mother's naked body in the bathtub, wrists slit and a plastic bag over her head. Meanwhile, a serial killer is snatching teen boys from a local park, and Mark and his sidekick, Jimbo, begin to explore a nearby abandoned house. Mark grows obsessed with the house, eventually revealed as the rotting source of the evil that stalks Millhaven, but also as the harbor of a great marvel. When Mark disappears, Tim pursues his trail and, with Tom Pasmore's help, that of the serial killer who may have taken the boy away. Straub remains a master of place and character; his insight into teens, in particular, is astonishingly astute. His myriad narrative framings allow multiple interpretations of events, making this story work on many levels, yet they also increase the urgency of the story, up to its incandescent ending. With great compassion and in prose as supple as mink, Straub has created an exciting, fearful, wondrous tale about people who matter, in one of his finest books to date.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Once more, Straub employs the scene (Millhaven, Illinois) and the protagonists--'nam-vet novelist Tim Underhill and rich, super-attentive and -intuitive P.I. Tom Pasmore--of his hefty best-sellers Koko (1988), Mystery (1989), and The Throat (1993). Relegating Pasmore to the secondary cast and using Tim as both first-person recorder of events and third-person general narrator, Straub explores two appalling tragedies. Tim's sister-in-law, Nancy, an appealing woman whom many pity for marrying ill-tempered Philip Underhill, kills herself for no apparent reason. Mere days later, Philip and Nancy's handsome 15-year-old, Mark, disappears. Since a serial killer has been "disappearing" middle-teen boys from the park in which Mark and his best friend, Jimbo, hung out nights, the worst is feared. With Pasmore working behind the scenes, Tim sets out to understand his two losses. Mostly, he must get Jimbo to reveal all that he knows. As he succeeds with the boy, Tim discovers that in the abandoned house across the alley from Philip and Nancy's are the keys to the puzzles of her death, Mark's vanishing, and other mysteries. Much of what Tim learns is hideous, but some of it points to transcendent redemption for Mark and a girl who disappeared long ago in even grislier circumstances. This is the great novel of the supernatural Straub has always had it in him to write, one as beautiful, moving, and spiritually rich as the best stories in his dazzling collections Houses without Doors (1990) and Magic Terror (2000). Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (October 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978532007
• ISBN-13: 978-1400060924
• ASIN: 1400060923
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #421,934 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great horror novel, October 7, 2003

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Phillip Underhill doesn't have a clue what is going on in his own home. His wife Nancy, usually a cheerful person, is getting more withdrawn by the day and the only one who notices it is their son Mark. Phillip doesn't realize that she is remembering a time when her cousin by marriage asked for help for her and her daughter and she refused to give it. When Mark isn't worrying about his mother, he is obsessing about the house on 3323 North Michigan Street.

His mother warns him to stay away from the house but neglects to tell him that once was owned by her cousin, a notorious serial killer. When Mark breaks into the house she senses it and commits suicide. Mark explores the house finding secret rooms, tunnels and staircases. He also senses the presence of someone in the house and tells his best friend before he disappears. The police think he's the victim of a serial killer but Mark's uncle Tim believes that he met with a different fate.

From the very beginning LOST BOY LOST GIRL has an eerie gothic atmosphere and as the plot moves forward the tale becomes even spookier. There are two parallel sub-plots involving a serial killer and a ghost that never intersect, leaving readers to ponder Mark's fate throughout the novel. Timothy Underhill, who also appeared in KOKO AND THE THROAT, plays a vital role in this horror thriller. He is the one who puts together Mark's actions during his last days and comes to a conclusion that is emotionally satisfying his belief system. Peter Straub continues to write great horror novels that engage his myriad of fans.

Harriet Klausner

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book of the Year, December 30, 2003

By	Douglas Hahner (Spotswood, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Did it all really happen, or is it a story that Tim Underhill made up to cope with the loss of his nephew?

This is a fantastic book with many layers. You could read it from cover to cover and take everything literally, and enjoy a good serial killer story. Or you could stretch your brain muscles and read between the lines.

Much like the characters in the book I believe you, the reader, should not believe everything you see, or read. A hint that Tim Underhill might not be a reliable narrator comes at the very beginning of the book. Tim believes he is a witness to a hit and run accident that leaves a man dead. However it turns out that it was just a movie being filmed and the man hit by the car is fine.

This just sets up that nothing in this book (even the book itself, in my opinion) is as it appears.

When you're done with the book ask yourself, did I really read what I thought I did, or is there more in the background?

I would love to go deep into examples of why I feel that Tim is an untrustworthy narrator, but I don't want to ruin anything for people who want to read this.

Like I said you can read this as a straight forward mystery, or you can question the narrator and see where the answers to those questions take you.

As the X-Files said: Trust No One

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This may well be Peter Straub's best book to date, October 18, 2003

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

LOST BOY LOST GIRL is a novel that I fear is going to be lost, if not ignored, in the plethora of releases that greet the autumn season. This would be tragic, though not entirely without reason. Peter Straub attracted major audiences with novels such as GHOST STORY, SHADOWLAND and FLOATING DRAGON. He even co-wrote THE TALISMAN with Stephen King. Then, for some reason, his audience ... dwindled. Maybe it is due to the perception --- an erroneous one --- that Straub was not writing Peter Straub novels anymore. In fact, he was --- and is. But apart from a second collaboration with King on BLACK HOUSE, which is both a sequel of sorts to THE TALISMAN and a companion volume to King's DARK TOWER series, Straub has not been heard from recently. And greater is the pity that few, it seems, have noticed.

This is disappointing, because LOST BOY LOST GIRL is a novel that succeeds on so many (occasionally) contradictory levels that it has the potential to quietly become a classic over time. It may well be one of those novels that "bubbles under" saleswise, never really breaking into the all-important "charts" yet sailing along for years and years without ever going out of print. In this age of categorization, it is difficult to comfortably place LOST BOY LOST GIRL. It is, possibly, a ghost story, or a romance, or a mystery, or a thriller, even a domestic novel. Certainly it touches all of those genres and perhaps others. It is so enigmatic a novel that one almost overlooks how beautifully, wonderfully and fearfully told it is.

Much of LOST BOY LOST GIRL is told from the viewpoint of Timothy Underhill, a writer of some renown who leaves his home in New York City and returns to his hometown of Millhaven. Underhill's sister-in-law has committed suicide and his return to town for the funeral opens fresh wounds in his tenuous relationship with his brother, Philip. Philip is difficult at best, a man who seems to be, though not actively evil, wholly without redeeming social value. Mark, Philip's son and Timothy's nephew, is described as a beautiful boy, a fifteen-year-old on the cusp of adulthood and apparently unaware of the quiet magic his appearance and presence has upon people.

Mark's disappearance a week after the funeral is like a second death. Timothy returns again to Millhaven to doggedly search for Mark, either to find him or to learn his ultimate fate. He quickly learns that other boys have disappeared from the area and that Mark had become obsessed with an abandoned house in his neighborhood, so Timothy is thinking that there is a connection between the house and the missing boys. There is also some indication that a mysterious figure, somehow connected to the abandoned house, had been quietly stalking Mark in the days preceding his disappearance. Timothy slowly but painstakingly learns that Mark was discovering a connection between the house and his own heritage, and that his obsession with the house is awakening dangers from the past and the present.

LOST BOY LOST GIRL is a novel that needs to be read and reread. This may well be the best book of Straub's already brilliant career. The ending is an enigmatic one and, I think, very deliberately so. Straub has neatly crafted this tale so that any one of a number of conclusions may or may not be correct. LOST BOY LOST GIRL is a tale that will fascinate members of book discussion groups, college seminars and, most importantly, you.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub