What Was Lost

What Was Lost該書講述20世紀80年代，既認真又好奇的小姑娘凱特‧米妮經常和她的玩具猴一起扮演初級偵探的角色，她經常在新開張的格林奧克斯購物中心「偵察」、記錄並跟蹤「嫌疑人」。她和報刊代理經銷商的兒子艾德里安是好朋友。某天凱特突然失蹤之後，艾德里安成為首號嫌疑犯。20多年過去了，艾德里安的姐姐麗薩在一家特價唱片店工作，她偶然在店內的監控錄影機上發現了失蹤的凱特的身影之後，與男友一起展開了對失蹤小女孩和與之相關的格林‧奧克斯購物中心歷史真相的找尋。

「出自一位新的文學天才的令人難以忘懷的絕妙作品」，「用荒誕和恐怖的手法來炙烤我們這個消費主義至上的社會。」對於Catherine O'Flynn這位文壇新人的首部小說《失去的是什麼》（What Was Lost），英國的各類主流媒體均毫不吝惜讚美之詞。該書是小說類圖書榜單中出版時間最長的一本書，一年多之後，它才擠入了榜單的前十名，屬於「慢熱型」的作品。該書曾入圍2007年英國Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction與Man Booker Prize的候選名單。

A tender and sharply observant debut novel about a missing young girl—long-listed for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and The Guardian First Book Award

In the 1980s, Kate Meaney—“Top Secret” notebook and toy monkey in tow—is hard at work as a junior detective. Busy trailing “suspects” and carefully observing everything around her at the newly opened Green Oaks shopping mall, she forms an unlikely friendship with Adrian, the son of a local shopkeeper. But when this curious, independent-spirited young girl disappears, Adrian falls under suspicion and is hounded out of his home by the press.

Then, in 2003, Adrian’s sister Lisa—stuck in a dead-end relationship—is working as a manager at Your Music, a discount record store. Every day she tears her hair out at the outrageous behavior of her customers and colleagues. But along with a security guard, Kurt, she becomes entranced by the little girl glimpsed on the mall’s surveillance cameras. As their after-hours friendship intensifies, Lisa and Kurt investigate how these sightings might be connected to the unsettling history of Green Oaks itself. Written with warmth and wit, What Was Lost is a haunting debut from an incredible new talent.

About the Author

Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham, England, in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ candy store. She has been a teacher, Web editor, and mystery customer—and this, her first novel, draws on her experience of working in record stores. After spending several years in Barcelona, she now lives in Birmingham.