48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister
First edition | |
| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Gothic |
| Publisher | The Mysterious Press |
Publication date | 2023 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 297 |
| ISBN | 978-0802125057 |
48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates published in 2023 by The Mysterious Press.
The work was awarded the Prix Fitzgerald in 2025.[1]
Plot
The novel is presented in forty-eight numerically consecutive short chapters organized in three sections. Each chapter opens with an italicized word, term, date, or phrase that may serve as a clue. The novel has no table of contents.
The 30-year-old Marguerite Fulmer disappeared unexpectedly from her father's exclusive estate in upstate New York on April 11, 1991. Beautiful and accomplished, the talented sculptor and college art instructor leaves behind only enigmatic hints as to her whereabouts.
Her younger and less attractive sibling, Georgene, serves as the misanthropic narrator who seeks to unravel the why and wherefore surrounding Marguerite's disappearance.[2]
Reviews
Critic David Pitt at Booklist calls 48 Clues “another masterpiece of storytelling…A thematically and stylistically ambitious novel that displays the author’s literary gifts to their maximum effect.”[3]
New York Times literary critic Sarah Weinman rates 48 Clues “subpar” among Oates's crime genre fiction: “[W]hat could have been an unnerving tale is marred by truly puzzling stylistic choices (so many parentheticals, one after another!).”[4][5]
Reviewer Laury A. Egan at New York Review of Books reserves special praise for Oates's disaffected narrator, the “emotionally disturbed” younger sister, Georgene Fulmer
In 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister, Oates has added another disturbing character to her bountiful cast of strange people and devised another chilling work, one that will slot into the vast canon for which she is justly renowned.”[6]
Footnotes
- ^ "48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister". Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Patchwork. Celestial Timepiece. Retrieved March 14, 2025.
- ^ Egan, 2023: Plot summary
- ^ Pitt, 2023: “Georgene is a vastly complex character whose every word, every use of parentheses and italics, must be examined closely for intent.”
- ^ Weinman, 2023: “...even a subpar Oates novel unmoors me and makes me wonder what will arrive next.”
- ^ Egan, 2023: “Why give such heightened emphasis to words that could be smoothly inserted into the text, set off with less intrusive commas?”
- ^ Egan, 2023: Georgene: “Georgene’s envy of her sister blooms like septic mold on the house’s walls: ‘to be second-born is to be second-rate.’”
Sources
- Egan, Laury A. 2023. '48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister." New York Review of Books. https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/48-clues-disappearance-my-sister Accessed 05 March, 2025.
- Pitt, David. 2023. "Review: 49 Clues Into the Disappearance of My Sister." Booklist, February 15, 2023. https://celestialtimepiece.com/2023/05/16/48-clues-into-the-disappearance-of-my-sister/ Accessed 9 March 2025.
- Weinman, Sarah. 2023. "A Sculptor’s Disappearance, Narrated by Her ‘Less Beautiful’ Sister." New York Times, March 16, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/books/review/new-crime-mystery-books.html Accessed 8 March 2025.
- Oates, Joyce Carol. 2023. 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister. The Mysterious Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-61316-381-8