This is a story narrated by Sandy Shortt, a missing persons one-person agency, obsessed about finding things and people, who goes missing herself. In her quest to find a particular person, she finds that she ended up in a place called Here.Here is a place where everything that goes lost ends up. This would include things, people and even voices and noises. Say for example you forget the sound of someone's laughter, then people at Here would suddenly here it in their atmosphere. It's kinda freaky and very Twilight-zone-ish. Here forms a community where these lost people build families and do everything to survive together including farming and trading. The only catch about Here is that everything in Here do not go missing and the people in Here cannot get out of Here. Everyone except Sandy, of course.
The main characters in the story: Dr Gregory Burton - boyfriend and psychiatrist since Sandy was eight, and Jack Ruttle - person obsessed with finding Sandy and finally do find her.
Anyway, to me, the author tries to engage into the fantasy realism to tell a simple story about personal recovery and discovery.
At the core, it is a story about noticing things which are here with you now rather than searching for things that are missing,to focus on the present and live in the present and not to delve into the past and things that are gone. More importantly,I believe the message is also to learn to let go of things that are holding you back.
We need to appreciate the things and the people that in our lives now, to acknowledge them, to accept them and also to celebrate them because if we were to suddenly lose them, we would forever regret not taking the chance. Life, as it is, is about taking chances, making mistakes and growing from all the experience.
The other message I gather from the book is that, Jack's tireless search reflects the fact that you must always have hope and look into the future even when things are extremely bad in your lives at the moment. Even when things are at the lowest point, always tell yourself that there is a future beyond this and you must rise up from this low.
You must never give up on what you are doing and always keep your faith even if you keep hitting a wall.
