World Gone Missing
WINNER, Nautilus Book Award, Fiction
East Bay Express TOP BOOK PICK
Called a “gorgeous debut” by Best American Short Stories-author Peter Orner, Laurie Ann Doyle’s story collection is linked by what most of us know but never talk about: people don’t become fully visible until they disappear. And they can disappear in so many ways.In these twelve stories set in and around San Francisco, a cast of memorable characters struggle to fill the void of a missing loved one. From the newly married couple anxiously searching for the brother who seemed to vanish into thin air, to the San Francisco businesswoman increasingly obsessed with the high school friend whose mother’s suicide drove the girls apart years before, to the insurance clerk determined to meet her son’s long lost birthmother, Doyle’s writing vividly evokes the loss and liberation absence can bring.
IN THE PRESS
The Mercury News — “Laurie Ann Doyle delivers on her passion for the short story.”
The Berkeley Times — “Doyle’s stories are dialogue-perfect vignettes of human relationships. The important word here is perfect.”
Suzanne M. Lang’s interview on NPR’s A Novel Idea
Berkeleyside — Editor Frances Dinkelspiel interviews Laurie about World Gone Missing
Praise for World Gone Missing
“World Gone Missing offers astute and sensitive portrayals of people who desire connection, hope, renewal, and, even, resolutions to all that cannot be resolved. Laurie Ann. Doyle’s voice is self-assured and compelling, and she writes with a grace that is both refreshing and rare.”
—Edan Lepucki, The New York Times bestselling author of California and Woman No. 17
“Doyle shows real range in this collection, and she doesn’t flinch when rendering emotionally complex trajectories. I read this in a single sitting, which might be the biggest compliment to pay an author.”
—Joshua Mohr, bestselling author of Sirens and Model Citizen
“A plain spoken, direct, and emotionally resonant collection of stories, World Gone Missing is a gorgeous debut. It’s also an honest homage to a rapidly changing San Francisco.”
—Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here? and Still No Word From You
“Laurie Ann Doyle understands how to structure a story so that it sneaks up on you and gives you a thump that leaves you breathless–breathless with wonder. In World Gone Missing, Doyle reveals the potent possibilities of missed connections, which can veer from loss and estrangement at one moment to just-close-enough to redemption at another.”
—Catherine Brady, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
“In World Gone Missing, we are swept along by these beautifully crafted stories, full of surprising truths that carry an exhilarating punch.”
—Nina Schuyler, author of the award-winning novel, The Translator