The Year of Fog Author:Michelle Richmond Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason -- photographer, fiancee soon-to-be-stepmother -- looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child’s disappearance, an... more »d of one woman’s unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love -- all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond’s incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight.
Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger’s van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning -- and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach.
Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma’s father finds solace in religion and scientific probability -- but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all -- as the truth of Emma’s disappearance unravels with stunning force.
A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope -- of the choices we make and the choices made for us -- The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child.« less
This was not, admittedly, my kind of book. I read about half of it, which was compelling enough (how can you NOT wonder what happens to a child who disappears?) and moderately well written. But then I got tired of the plot and the characters, none of whom I really liked. The ending was downright ridiculous.
Alrite, I was given this book to read. I would recommend this book if you like a lot of details, sometimes I felt lost in the book due to all the descriptions. I mean really how many times do you need to describe a sunset???
however the story line is great the ending leaves you with so many questions.
Year of Fog had some interesting facts about memory, missing children and surfing. However, can't say I enjoyed it all that much. It seemed to bogg down in the middle but did picked up at the end. Some books would be better a little shorter and this was one of them.
ABsolutely hated this book. The author went on and on...page after page...chapter after chapter about the main character looking for this child. It was also downright unbelievable. I think the book was edited by an summer, high school intern at the publishing house. It was horrible.
The sense of place in this book is incredibly intense. Anyone who has experienced San Francisco fog will recognize it, and I think anyone who has not will begin to understand it. The story is immediately compelling, and the descriptions of the characters and their individual journeys are moving. The premise - the loss of a child in a random, sudden event - is so chilling, that there were times I wanted to stop reading. But I wanted to follow the characters and find out what happened in the end. It was both what I expected and a surprise, so hang in there, and just enjoy the beautiful words.
This is a gripping book!! She loses the young daughter of her fiance on the beach and tries and tries to recreate what exactly happened, locate any people she saw there, even goes abroad to find someone! How can this tragedy happen so quickly? This story will have you running through it, reading to see if and how she finds the daughter and where. A good tale of intrigue and sadness.
I really liked No One You Know, so I jumped at the chance to read this one. I thought the plot was interesting, and though I didn't love any of the characters, I did enjoy them for the simple fact they weren't cookie cutter people you could transplant to any story. By halfway through, though, I'd had more than enough of long passages on memory or photograpy not because I was bored but because it felt like a textbook or a lecture--very dry. I think this book would have been better as a short story. Or as a much shorter novel. She could have canned all the exposition on memory and stuck to the story, and I think it would have been great. This hasn't turned me off to the author, and I'll read her other books.
I enjoyed this book. It is an easy read with a surprising ending. A book that you can take with you and read a few pages at a time without getting confused!! Enjoyable, light reading
Loved this book. It is about a woman who blames herself when her fiancee's young daughter goes missing while they are walking together. It deals with her feeling, the changes in her relationship with the girl's father, and her search for the girl. It has interesting information about memory and how it works. It's the first book in a long time that I seriously considered reading again only a couple of months later.
The Year of Fog is a very good, very well-written book. It is long and, at times, seems a little too long. What's wonderful about that is that it's intentional. The protagonist, Abby, is searching for a little girl who has disappeared. Desperate to find her and refusing to give up, Abby spends every minute worrying about the little girl and trying to figure out how to locate her, where she could be. Meanwhile, Abby is trying to make a living and encourage herself to get on with her life as the days pass slowly, intolerably. During the times when the story seems slow or the book kind of plods along, the reader becomes aware of how awful this time must be for Abby. Each day that passes, that the little girl isn't found is another day without her. It'sd excruciating, painful. As quickly as the days pass, they also seem interminable.
This is a great book about a terrible situation that occurrs more often then any of us want to know.
