Five Days Gone

Author: Laura Cumming
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Scribner, 2019
Pages: 320
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: In the fall of 1929, when Laura Cumming's mother was three years old, she was kidnapped from a beach on the Lincolnshire coast of England. There were no screams when she was taken, suggesting the culprit was someone familiar to her, and when she turned up again in a nearby village several days later, she was found in perfect health and happiness. No one was every accused of the crime. The incident quickly faded from her memory, and her parents never discussed it. To the contrary, they deliberately hid it from her, and she did not learn of it for a half a century.

This was not the only secret her parents kept from her. For many years, while raising her in a draconian isolation and protectiveness, they also hid the fact that she'd been adopted, and that shortly after the kidnapping, her name was changed from Grace to Betty.

Review: I honestly don't know why the author, and maybe more importantly the publisher, thought there was a story here. The title and synopsis makes it seem like this will be more compelling than it actually is. It's family lore, and for an outsider there is a lot of unimportant details and musings. Restructuring this novel would have done wonders for its readability, but again, I'm not sure it needed to be a published book to begin with.