What Was Lost

Boyfriendly and I had an interesting conversation about the title of this book. Where is the emphasis? Is it a question, or a statement? If it is a question, then what was lost? And was something previously lost, but now in a different state of being? I told him that I'd have to finish the book before I could answer any of those questions.

Now that I've finished, I can say assuredly that the answer to all of these is particularly complicated, and within the complication lies the beauty of this book. A little girl has been lost, a brother has been lost, ambitions, beliefs, lives, all have been lost. Some of these things are regained, or at least found, by the end of the book. Those that have remained lost are the voices of the short, anonymous vignettes, telling of their moments at the Green Oaks shopping center. Though Kate Meaney may be the only ghost in this novel in the classical sense - dead person whose soul haunts a significant location in their life, or something approximating that definition - O'Flynn creates a crowd of living ghosts, people who aren't seen as who they really are - at home, at the mall, at school.

The most wonderful thing about this book? That something so sad, so resigned, could be so funny and alive and beautiful.