Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby
Mason--photographer, fiancée soon-to-be-stepmother--looks into her
camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and
beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of
the search for the truth behind a child's disappearance, and of one
woman's unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love--all made
startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond's incandescent sensitivity
and extraordinary insight.
Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the
heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a
stranger's van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt,
haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to
believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what
happened that morning--and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching
from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the
beach.
Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers
fade on telephone poles, Emma's father finds solace in religion and
scientific probability--but Abby can only wander the beaches and city
streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost.
With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a
country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea,
on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange
subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding
discovery of all--as the truth of Emma's disappearance unravels with
stunning force.
A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope--of the choices we
make and the choices made for us--The Year of Fog beguiles with the
mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous
workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force
that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child.
