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The Moment She was Gone
By Evan Hunter
Simon and Schuster
Reviewed by: Rob Holden
For anybody who doesn't know, Evan Hunter and Ed McBain are the same guy. McBain writes the 87th precinct novels (over 50 of them), The Mathew Hope series (over a dozen of those) and a few other books, as if he wasn't busy enough already. Hunter writes whatever he damn well pleases--better than 30 books--ranging from mysteries to westerns to short story collections, to even a handful of children's books. Once, Hunter and McBain even got together and wrote a novel called Candyland (2001). I mention all this because not only do I personally find it fascinating that one person can manage to have TWO best selling careers in one lifetime, but also to let you know that -- even though they are the same guy -- Evan Hunter and Ed McBain are very different writers. Ed McBain would never have written The Moment She Was Gone.
That is one of the reasons it is really nice to have Evan Hunter around.
Andrew Gulliver -- the narrator of this novel -- is a thirty-something teacher, writer, son and brother, not necessarily in that order. His twin sister, Annie, is a woman with many dimensions and many peculiarities -- not the least of which is her habit of disappearing suddenly and sometimes for very extended periods of time -- with no notice. In Andy's world, since the twins were sixteen years old, one moment his sister is there, and the next moment she is gone. Where Annie goes and what she does -- and, in some cases, doesn't do there -- provides a backdrop told in flashback form for a much deeper, much more complex story of familial relationships, emotional and psychological illness, belief, denial, fear and, finally, love. Considering its length (208 pages hardcover) The Moment She Was Gone is an almost extraordinarily complex novel that not only looks at those things that make people who and what they are, but also explores how other people and our relationships with them make us what we ourselves become.
Perhaps most amazing for me in this novel, however, is the fact that -- with a lovingly subtle hand that is so quick that if you blink you can miss it -- Mr. Hunter actually caused me to distrust his narrator Andy while at the same time really making me feel for the guy. I wanted to believe what he was telling me, and I wanted to trust his motives for the actions he took when it came to his sister, but there was always something there, just below the surface, that I could never quite trust. The inconsistencies in stories and behavior -- blatant with Annie and oh so subtle with Andy -- mount as the story progresses and always, always there is the fact that she is gone, yet again.
While Hunter takes us into much of Andy's personal history -- including the fact that his entire life has been, in one way or another, dominated by a severely dysfunctional family -- The Moment She Was Gone is really a story about denial. As the reader becomes more and more convinced that Annie is suffering from severe schizophrenia, Andy spends his time trying to convince everyone -- including himself -- that there is nothing wrong with her. Hunter proves himself to be a master at getting inside the heads of his characters and showing the sort of frailties -- sometimes born of fear, other times born of love - that make us all too human.
The Moment She Was Gone is a fascinating, fast-paced, compelling read from one of the true masters working today. No, it isn't an Ed McBain novel. It is an Evan Hunter novel -- and a damn good one.
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