Summer books: “The Missing”
Simply put, Southern author Tim Gautreaux writes masterpieces. His powerful 2004 novel “The Clearing” — simultaneously beautiful and nightmarish — gave an action-packed glimpse into the rough-and-tumble world of backcountry, deep-swamp Louisiana lumber camps of the 1920s. Part page-turner, part morality play, it transports the reader to a time when life was hard and death easy. The same goes for Gautreaux’s new masterwork, “The Missing,” a compelling story of a man’s search for both a missing girl and his true self. Again, we readers are immersed in a culture — Mississippi riverboat life of the 1920s — that’s equally fascinating and frightening. Our hero Sam Simoneaux, war vet and dedicated family man, must journey upriver and into the past to settle scores that leave him puzzled and unsure. It’s a hardscrabble life that makes a great story. Gautreaux has been compared to southern writing gods William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, but that’s not quite an accurate comparison. Gautreaux’s tales, lyrical as they are, have more drive, more mystery, more I-gotta-know immediacy than anything by those ol’ classic stylists. For sure, once you start a Gautreaux novel, you can’t put it down. Can’t say that about Faulkner.