The Year of Fog A Novel

Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Masonphotographer, fiancee soon-to-be-stepmotherlooks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child's disappearance, and of one woman's unwavering faith in the redemptive power of loveall made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond's incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight. Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger's van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morningand cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach. Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma's father finds solace in religion and scientific probabilitybut Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of allas the truth of Emma's disappearance unravels with stunning force. A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hopeof the choices we make and the choices made for usThe Year of Fogbeguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child. From the Hardcover edition.

Michelle Richmond is the author of the novel Dream of the Blue Room and a story collection which won the Associated Writing Programs Award. She is also the recipient of the 2006 Mississippi Review Prize. A native of Mobile, Alabama, Michelle lives with her husband and son in San Francisco, where she teaches creative writing and serves on the advisory board of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. She is currently at work on her next novel, which Delacorte will publish in 2008.


From the Hardcover edition.