Among the Missing

A Novel

By: Dan Chaon

Narrated by: Dylan Baker, Becky Ann Baker

In this haunting, bracing new collection, Dan Chaon shares stories of men, women, and children who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place. Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect.

Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion. Among the Missing lingers in the mind through its subtle grace and power of language.

©2001 Dan Chaon
(P)2001 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

2001, National Book Awards, Prize Jury

"One of the best short story writers around . . . Dan Chaon’s stories are funny, heartbreaking, beautifully written, and intelligently conceived.” –LORRIE MOORE Author of Birds of America

“AN IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF STORIES, A GENUINELY LITERARY ACCOMPLISHMENT.” –HA JIN National Book Award—winning author

“With a story like [‘Big Me’] from the marvelous writer Dan Chaon, I am confronted not only with an unfathomable mystery such as that of the endurance of a single human identity over time, but also with new proof of the enduring value of telling tales in the ongoing struggle to understand those mysteries.” –MICHAEL CHABON Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Bleak on Bleak

I found it filled with distant bleak characters that had no purpose or meaning. It was very difficult to empathize with them. Meandering subplots confused and distracted me. A bit too cutsy with literary devices. Read in a snarky and sarcastic tone. Yet refreshing because it was different from so many happy ending novels

Among the Missing - you can miss this one

These stories are about characters who are, in one way or another, dealing with the absence of someone who used to be in their lives. In some cases the absence is welcome, in others not, and in still others, the loss is ambiguous. What is pretty consistent is the dreariness of the characters at the center of each story, the negative and pessimistic world-view that is described by the author, and the droning, monotone narration by both of the readers. A significant number of the stories just stop, making me re-wind the audio to see if I had skipped something. If I were reading a real book, I would have counted the pages to see if some had been torn out. No such luck - the stories are just essentially pointless narrations of someone's wandering thoughts about people that we are given no good reason to care about, or even be intrigued with. Did not hold my interest.

T.C. Boyle without the Zing

Dan Chaon emulates the off-center situations and attitudes that make T.C. Boyle's writing so compelling. On this front, he succeeds. But he fails to turn those situations into anything approaching drama, and that's a shame because even Chaon's frequent contributor to the N.Y. Times have more life than his short stories.

That being said, I was most disappointed that while living and working in Cleveland, Chaon didn't see fit to include more of the flavor of the area in his writing as he does when writing for the Times.

Endings are aming the missing

Dan Chaon pens some very appealing passages in this collection of eerie stories. His viewpoint seems to be that detached and dysfunctional people are under the influence of various supernatural
essences. I'll go along with his premise, but I can't go along with the way his stories don't end. They simply stop. It was like being back in high school Creative Writing Class, where you're dropped into the middle of a plot and forced to make up an ending. I felt cheated; if I was creative enough to come up with good finishes, I'd be a writer instead of a reader.