The Truth About Celia: A novel [Hardcover]

On a cool day in March, seven-year-old Celia Brooks vanishes from her backyard, leaving no signs as to whether she ran away or was abducted. It's as if she simply ceased existing. The unexplained --- and apparently unexplainable --- nature of Celia's disappearance overwhelms her father and mother, Christopher and Janet, and begins to tear at their marriage as if, having been parents, they cannot return to being lovers or even friends.

Brockmeier implies that Celia's family will never know the truth about her and that they will be haunted for the rest of their lives. But he balances their consuming pain and confusion with a playful sense of wonder that underscores the novel's immense tragedy, making THE TRUTH ABOUT CELIA simultaneously wrenching and whimsical.

An Arkansas resident who has published a children's book called CITY OF NAMES and a short-story collection entitled THINGS THAT FALL FROM THE SKY, Brockmeier is a curious and questioning writer who seems to draw from many disparate influences. Comprised of agile, eloquent sentences speckled with clear, evocative imagery, his writing combines Nicholson Baker's miniaturist eye for daily routines and household rituals, Italo Calvino's ability to mirror reality through fairy tales, and Vladimir Nabokov's restless structural innovation.

It's this last one that will likely strike readers immediately in THE TRUTH ABOUT CELIA. Like Nabokov's PALE FIRE, it is a book within a book. Brockmeier presents the novel as a collection of short stories written by Christopher Brooks, even supplying a list of Christopher's previous works, a dedication page, and an author's note. This device works similarly to letters in the best epistolary novels --- as a self-expression of a character's thoughts and inner turmoil. Each of Christopher's stories is a heartbreakingly futile attempt to figure out not only what happened to Celia but also how he can move on.

In some stories, like the collection opener, "March 15, 1997," Brooks tries to reconstruct Celia's last minutes in the world and speculate on her fate. For him, this story is important not only because it slavishly imagines her last moments but, more tellingly, because it tries to save her from impending danger and keep her perpetually young and wide-eyed --- in reality an impossible feat for any parent, but more than conceivable in art.

Other stories imagine Celia's life after her disappearance. In "The Green Children," she and a boy are sucked into a parallel world that resembles a fairy tale universe. But "Seel-ya," as the narrator calls her, and the unnamed boy are vividly hued, "their skin the pale flat green of wilting grass ... the veins beneath their arms were dark and prominent, the sharp green of clover or spinach leaves." The longer they're away from their homes, the more their distinctive colors fade. It's an apt metaphor for growing up and the consequent loss of childish imagination and innocence that Celia will never experience.

In the novel's most effective stories, however, Celia's absence is a palpable presence as Christopher examines the aftershocks of her disappearance and the growing chasm in his marriage to Janet. In "As the Deck Tilted into the Ocean," Janet haunts the local Cineplex seeking isolation and escapism in all kinds of movies, but Michelle Pfeiffer's The Deep End of the Ocean and its disagreeable depiction of a missing child bring her frustration and confusion to a boil.

Borrowing an eerie idea from an old episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Telephone" picks up where "As the Deck" leaves off, but it switches to Christopher's point of view as he uncovers Janet's affair with a local police officer and tries to reconcile their marriage. That Christopher is writing these stories after the disappearance of his daughter and the dissolution of his marriage gives them an intense emotional resonance, and each one represents a profound change in his life --- a moment of hurt or healing --- that he has undergone in the wake of Celia's departure.

Ultimately, writing in the words and stories of his main character, Brockmeier reveals with a flourish the therapeutic power of art and the kernel of emotion --- whether it's despair, hope, wonder, love or anger --- that illuminate all fiction. Despite the devastation it describes, THE TRUTH ABOUT CELIA reads like a joyous celebration of life.

--- Reviewed by Stephen M. Deusner

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