Among the Missing

A Novel

By: Dan Chaon

Narrated by: Dylan Baker, Becky Ann Baker

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A sharp and haunting collection of twelve stories about people who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place.

“Unforgettable . . . hums with life and wry humor . . . The stories sneak resolutely up on you, like new weather that hits before you know it.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

Each story in Among the Missing radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion as Dan Chaon imagines today’s family instinctively trying to stay together, only to find itself lost in the throes of a chaotic, modern world.

In “Safety Man,” a young widow and her children become increasingly attached to an inflatable protector-doll, as the world outside seems to grow ever more threatening; “Big Me” follows a lonely, imaginative twelve-year-old boy who believes an older (slightly creepier) version of himself has moved in next door; In “I Demand to Know Where You're Taking Me,” a man blinded by love for his imprisoned brother ignores the warnings of his distant wife and a talking parrot who both witness things he’s never seen; and “Among the Missing” explores how the death of a family, found buckled in their car at the bottom of a lake, casts a shadow on a small town and intrudes upon the narrator's relationship with his aging mother.

A writer of enormous talent and emotional depth, Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Among the Missing lingers in the mind through its subtle grace and power of language.Executive Producer: Karen Dimattia
Producer: Garet Scott
Original cover design by Min Choi
Original cover photography by Alexa Garbarino
©2001 Dan Chaon
(P) 2001 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“One of the best short story writers around . . . Dan Chaon’s stories are funny, heartbreaking, beautifully written, and intelligently conceived.”—Lorrie Moore, author of Birds of America

“Unforgettable . . . hums with life and wry humor . . . The stories sneak resolutely up on you, like new weather that hits before you know it.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

“These stories are ingeniously conceived and shrewdly written. They intensify the pathos of life—the ordinary loneliness, the disintegration of family bonds, the loss of growth, the strength to continue. Dan Chaon writes with understanding, insight, and restraint. Among the Missing is an important collection of stories, a genuinely literary accomplishment.”—Ha Jin, National Book Award–winning author of Waiting

“One of those writers who possess an uncanny and seemingly otherwordly understanding of the human condition . . . Chaon [is] a remarkable chronicler of a very American kind of sadness, much in the tradition of Richard Yates, Raymond Carver, and Denis Johnson. Like these writers, Chaon offers prose that’s straightforward, chiseled with a Hemingwayesque clarity and deceptive simplicity. . . . These stories are to be savored.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“These twelve stories—filled with compassion, sensitivity, and a quirky brand of humor—will stir readers to recall their own deepest moments of fear and sadness. Chaon’s characters struggle for meaning and connection, but they do so with quiet dignity, which is why (aside from the author’s precise, elegant prose) this collection is so pleasurable to read.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Brilliant . . . an outstanding collection . . . Every one of these stories is gem.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Rewarding . . . Chaon is a writer who can convincingly squeeze whole lives—the ones we lead and the more alluring ones we so eagerly imagine for ourselves—into a mere twenty pages or so. He writes beautifully. . . . His repeated grappling with questions of choice and chance in ordinary people’s lives, far from feeling repetitious, yields rich rewards in its every variation. Chaon’s seriousness of purpose and gifts of observation are enough to suggest that when any roster of skilled practitioners of the American short story is drawn up, he should definitely be counted present.”—Chicago Tribune

“These are memorable, mighty stories told by a master. An absolutely stupendous collection!”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Bleak on Bleak

I found it filled with distant bleak characters that had no purpose or meaning. It was very difficult to empathize with them. Meandering subplots confused and distracted me. A bit too cutsy with literary devices. Read in a snarky and sarcastic tone. Yet refreshing because it was different from so many happy ending novels

Among the Missing - you can miss this one

These stories are about characters who are, in one way or another, dealing with the absence of someone who used to be in their lives. In some cases the absence is welcome, in others not, and in still others, the loss is ambiguous. What is pretty consistent is the dreariness of the characters at the center of each story, the negative and pessimistic world-view that is described by the author, and the droning, monotone narration by both of the readers. A significant number of the stories just stop, making me re-wind the audio to see if I had skipped something. If I were reading a real book, I would have counted the pages to see if some had been torn out. No such luck - the stories are just essentially pointless narrations of someone's wandering thoughts about people that we are given no good reason to care about, or even be intrigued with. Did not hold my interest.

T.C. Boyle without the Zing

Dan Chaon emulates the off-center situations and attitudes that make T.C. Boyle's writing so compelling. On this front, he succeeds. But he fails to turn those situations into anything approaching drama, and that's a shame because even Chaon's frequent contributor to the N.Y. Times have more life than his short stories.

That being said, I was most disappointed that while living and working in Cleveland, Chaon didn't see fit to include more of the flavor of the area in his writing as he does when writing for the Times.

Endings are aming the missing

Dan Chaon pens some very appealing passages in this collection of eerie stories. His viewpoint seems to be that detached and dysfunctional people are under the influence of various supernatural
essences. I'll go along with his premise, but I can't go along with the way his stories don't end. They simply stop. It was like being back in high school Creative Writing Class, where you're dropped into the middle of a plot and forced to make up an ending. I felt cheated; if I was creative enough to come up with good finishes, I'd be a writer instead of a reader.