The Act of Disappearing

Author: Nathan Gower
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Mira Books, 2024
Pages: 400
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Julia White is struggling: her bartending job isn't cutting it and her first book has sold hardly any copies. She's broke, barely able to make ends meet while drowning in her late mother's medical bills and reeling after a one-night stand with her ex-boyfriend, who's now completely ghosted her. Enter Jonathan Aster, world-renowned photographer, with a proposal: he has a never-before-seen photograph of a woman falling from a train bridge, clutching what appears to be a baby. And he wants Julia to research the story.

Alternating between present-day Brooklyn and Kentucky as it enters the 1960s, the story unfolds as Julia races to find answers: Who was the woman in the photographer? Why was she on the bridge? And what happened to the baby? Each detail is more propulsive than the last as Julia unravels the mystery surrounding the Fairchilds of Gray Station and discovers a story more staggering than anything she could have imaged.

Review: I stayed up entirely too late reading, and then woke up early to finish. The story unfolds slowly through alternating timelines, but in such a way that I couldn't stop turning pages. This isn't a novel you've read before with a recycled plot.