Laurie Ann Doyle

Worlds Gone Missing is a beautiful collection of short stories all revolving around people who have disappeared. Set in the San Francisco Bay area, each story vibrates with eloquent imagery and heartbreaking loss. The plot of loss connecting these stories is something that piqued my interest and then once I read it, the characters she created had a life of their own.

In one story, a newly-married couple searches for their brother who is mentally unwell and missing. The reader travels with the couple throughout the Bay area in hopes of finding him alive. In another, the mother of her adopted son reaches out to his lost mother with the hope of reconnection. A different story tells of a young woman searching for her biological father who is lost to the world of homelessness.

Laurie Ann's writing blew me away. Story after story, I felt a harrowing loss for not only the characters searching but for the characters lost. It was surprising, gorgeous writing; the author somehow painted pictures of characters without the reader seeing the brush strokes on the canvas. I have already revisited a few of the stories in this collection for inspiration in both life and my own writing.… (altro)