Infinite Books

My friend once told me that she doesn’t trust beautiful people because they have it so much easier. Georgene, the young heroine of “48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister,” by Joyce Carol Oates, talks about her sister: “Her beauty, that was unjust. For all beauty is unjust.” Then she goes further: she hates her sister Marguerite, a gorgeous, silvery-blond woman, a sculptor teaching at the local art college. One day, M., as Gigi calls her, disappears from her family’s stately seven-bedroom, five-bathroom English Tudor, where she lives with her sister, their father, and Lena, their housekeeper. The prints of her Ferragamo boots on the path outside and a white, silk Dior dress on the floor of her room may be the first clues, but they don’t help much.

Georgene is not pretty. She’s often rude, her remarks snide, and her work at the post office boring. Always jealous of all the attention people paid to M., now she feels revenge for “no revenge without jealousy, they struck match.” For the first time, she has been noticed: an artist involved with M. becomes interested in her, the ugly younger sister!

The allure of literature is strongly connected with the diversity of characters and situations. Even if the novel’s protagonist is someone I can’t relate to, she or he can still be fascinating. Georgene may not be everybody’s friend, but her attitude changes throughout the novel. Eventually, Marguerite has been missing for 22 years. From a reluctant observer, her younger sister evolves into someone seeking answers. She becomes Marguerite’s protector, quickly uncovering the people who try to use her sister’s disappearance for their benefit.

It took me about 20 or so pages to become interested in the novel – this is the first person’s narrative, from the often unpleasant Georgene’s point of view, written similarly to a memoir – but once I got interested, I loved the author’s style. With an unexpected conclusion, it’s a different kind of thriller – a study of one woman’s character.

48 CLUES INTO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY SISTER, Joyce Carol Oates, Penzler Publishers, Mysterious Press, 2023