Whistle in the Dark

May 15, 2018
After four agonizing days, Jen and Hugh Maddox's 15-year-old daughter, Lana, has been found, bloodied and soaking wet. But where has she been?Lana herself cannot--or will not--say. The clues are scant: While on a mother-daughter painting course in the English countryside, Lana simply vanished one night and turned up four days later, spotted by a farmer. Did Lana leave voluntarily, or was she taken? Could fellow artist Stephen, a minister of the New Lollards Fellowship, a sect fascinated by visits to hell, have taken her? Or perhaps Matthew, the son of the holiday-center manager, lured Lana away? Remembering how she caught Lana last year with a plastic bag full of painkillers, Jen fears that Lana may have intended to harm herself. After Lana is discharged from the hospital, the Maddoxes return to London and attempt to patch their family back together. Still riddled with questions, Jen begins to investigate. In short, deft narrative fragments, Healey (Elizabeth Is Missing, 2014) captures Jen's piecing together of Lana's fragile psyche. Hoping to find clues, Jen scrutinizes Lana's sketchbook, her Instagram account, and the books hidden under her bed, alarmed to find repeated references to the end of life. With echoes of Demeter's rescue of Persephone, Jen's investigation into what happened over those four days becomes a quest to understand her daughter's mental illness and accept her broken memories. Healey beautifully depicts Lana's sense of unease in her own body: When asked by her therapist to find an image that symbolically represents her discomfort, Lana chooses one of birds, explaining that she feels as if she were full of fluttering birds eager to escape her skin. Along the way, Jen must face her own psychological quirks (including possibly imaginary cats) and walk in Lana's footsteps.An exquisite portrait of a mother's healing love for her troubled daughter.

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Starred review from June 1, 2018
In a twist on the standard missing-person plotline, this novel opens with finding a missing teenager. Fifteen-year-old Lana Maddox, on a painting holiday with her mother in England's Peak District, has been missing for four days when she's found with a bloody head wound, bruises, and no apparent memory of her ordeal. But despite their relief, parents Jen and Hugh Maddox know that Lana's past includes depression, self-harming, and suicidal thoughts, and that she has gone missing before. Jen wants answers from her daughter about what occurred, answers that aren't forthcoming, as Lana is alternately distant, insolent, mysterious, and?rarely?approachable to the verge of affectionate. Lana's older sister, Meg, steps in to help, but she has her own concerns; a lesbian who recently broke up with her girlfriend, she's midway through a pregnancy via artificial insemination from a straight male friend. Healey (Elizabeth Is Missing, 2014) fashions this novel in titled sections, ranging in length from a few lines to a few pages, a technique that advances the narration, along with flashbacks, while eliminating extraneous details and building suspense naturally. The result is an absorbing view of a family, with the emphasis on the mother-daughter connection, in which?flaws aside?love shines through.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)