Five Days Gone

I loved this book. That being said, it's not exactly what it says on the tin. Instead of an account of the child's disappearance, with some context before and some wrapping up after the event, it is instead a memoir of the early years of the author's mother, focusing on how her life was shaped by the domineering father and the repressive silence on all things personal in that family. There is much talk of art, which is fitting for the memoir of a woman who grows up to be an artist and also marry an artist, and much talk of Tennyson, which felt less fitting and I mostly skimmed over any lengthy bits about him. So the kidnapping is in the title, and it is certainly a crucial, defining event in the memoir, but it is not the focus of the book; the book is so much more, and it is so much better because of it.