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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

THE MISSING LIST

Clare Best

A moving and deeply personal memoir of abuse and trauma — a work of love and creativity, fury and grief
Finalist in the Mslexia Memoir Competition 2014

When Clare's father is diagnosed with cancer, he asks her to record his memories in the final stages of his life. Armed with a tape recorder, she sets out with both curiosity and trepidation to hear him tell his story — for there are parts of their shared life that she both wishes and fears he might explain to her. As his condition deteriorates, Clare weaves her father's edited footage of their family life and her childhood with her own fragmented memories, her father's lists and his unbending and sometimes unspoken rules. Together these elements build into a striking and unforgettable portrait of fractured lives and a trauma that moves between
generations, as Clare confronts her early experience of abuse by her father, finding at last a way to say ‘no' and ‘goodbye' and then a resounding ‘yes' — reclaiming her own life.

THE MISSING LIST is — in Clare's words — a work of love and creativity, of fury and grief. It is also a work of healing, exploring with thought-provoking power the redemptive effects of reflection and writing.

With resonances of Kathryn Harrison's THE KISS, John Burnside's A LIE ABOUT MY FATHER and Jeanette Winterson's WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL?, this book will appeal to readers who appreciate honest, finely-written memoir.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clare Best has worked as a bookbinder, a bookseller, an editor and a Creative Writing teacher.

Clare is a prize-winning poet and the author of five poetry publications: TREASURE GROUND (HappenStance, 2009); BREASTLESS (Pighog, 2011); EXCISIONS (Waterloo, 2011) Shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize 2012; CELL (Frogmore, 2015); SPRINGLINES (Little Toller, 2017). She has presented her autobiographical project ‘Self-portrait without Breasts' to audiences in Ireland, Canada and the USA as well as across the UK. Clare lives near the Suffolk coast with her husband and their whippet.
Available products
Book

Published 2018-09-01 by Linen Press