The Fates Will Find Their Way, By Hannah Pittard
Boy's own story about a missing girl
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Hannah Pittard's debut, about a 16-year-old schoolgirl who goes missing, was much likened to Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides when it first appeared. But, in its surmising of the girl's possible fate by the boys who knew her, it recalls more the work of Joyce Carol Oates, who has long been structuring her novels around a central absence.
While Pittard's boys fantasise about the missing Nora, they inevitably expose their own prejudices and mistakes, and emphasise the importance, and danger, of peer groups when you're young. Pittard's prose style is appropriately intimate and easy, but the darkness that hovers over a Carol Oates novel just isn't present here, meaning it has a curious lack of edge.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments