The Summer We Lost Her

TISH COHEN

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, Gallery Books, 2019.

How acquired: Library.

First line: It was one of those things that never should have happened – the kind you turn over, splay open with pins, and examine at intervals for the rest of your life because it will never, ever cease to matter.

(For the Goodreads synopsis, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

My thoughts: A new to me author, I picked up this book while browsing the shelves at my local library. It's very engrossing, sucking me in quickly. The back cover copy says that while in the Adirondacks packing up a family cabin to sell, Matt and Elise's daughter Gracie “disappears without a trace”. So I thought that would be the book. It would be about this couple dealing with their young daughter's disappearance. Except Gracie didn't actually disappear until about halfway through the book. Until then, the book is an examination of Matt and Elise's lives, and their faltering marriage. And it was a wonderful character study.

Elise is an Olympic hopeful, whose whole life has revolved around horses and dressage competitions. She is away from her husband and daughter for months at a time, gone more than she is home. At one point, Gracie is trying to get her parents to let her have a turtle, and she argues to her dad that mom will help her clean the tank when she visits. Not comes home. Visits. It was a wounding moment for both parents. I can't imagine being driven the way Elise is. I can't imagine having a child and then never being home with that child. I certainly could not relate to Elise. I didn't dislike her, but I didn't admire love her drive and ambition.

Matt is an attorney, and has just been offered a partnership. He's been Gracie's primary caretaker all her life, and while he wants the partnership, it would mean hiring a nanny to help care for Gracie, which he does not want. It's a bit of a gender swap, and I did relate to him a bit, having worked full time while still being the parent who was the primary caretaker of our two daughters, though out of necessity they were in daycare all of their early childhood.

I very much liked Ms. Cohen's writing. The narrative switched back and forth between Elise's POV and Matt's, as well as between the present and the past, giving us glimpses of the couple's lives when they were kids, when they met, the early years of their marriage. The descriptions of the Adirondacks was often evocative. And I was kept in the dark – I had no idea what happened to Gracie until her parents found out, and I had no idea whether or not Matt and Elise would be able to salvage their marriage.

One more author to add to my ever growing list, with a handful of other books I now need to hunt down.

Goodreads synopsis: It’s been a busy—and expensive—few years for Matt and Elise Sorenson and their young daughter Gracie, whom they affectionately call Little Green. Matt, a Manhattan lawyer, has just been offered a partnership, and Elise’s equestrian ambitions as a competitive dressage rider may finally vault her into the Olympics. But her long absences from home and endless hours of training have strained their relationships nearly to the breaking point.

Now they’re up in the Adirondacks, preparing to sell the valuable lakefront cabin that’s been in Matt’s family for generations. Both he and Elise agree it’s time to let it go. But as they navigate the memories the cabin holds—and come face to face with Matt’s teenage crush, now an unnervingly attractive single mother living right next door—Gracie disappears without a trace.

Faced with the possibility that they’ll never see their daughter again, Elise and Matt struggle to come to terms with what their future may bring. The fate of the family property, the history of this not-so-tiny town, and the limits of Matt and Elise’s love for each other are inextricably bound up with Gracie’s disappearance. Everything for the Sorenson family is about to change—the messy tangle of their past, the harrowing truth of their present, and whether or not their love will survive a parent’s worst nightmare.