The Art of Vanishing

November 27, 2017
Smith’s seductive memoir interweaves her search for personal freedom with an account of a woman who abandoned her marriage and disappeared without a trace in the early 20th century. Smith feared that married life would be predictable and dull. In her mid-20s, Smith was told a story about Barbara Follett, who deserted her own marriage in 1939 and was never seen again. Intrigued, Smith began researching Follett’s life. As a child of 12, Follett published a novel, The House Without Windows, that became a bestseller. Follett embarked on a life of travel and adventure, got married at 19, and then disappeared when she was 25. While digging deeper into Follett’s life, Smith “began to feel an uncomfortable sensation: recognition.” Smith then found herself testing the boundaries of her marriage. While at a writing retreat in Banff, Canada, she had an affair with another man. When she was about to sleep with yet another man at the same conference she stopped herself, realizing that she was “a monogamous adulteress.” After this revelation, she began to reconsider her marriage and the course of her life. Smith’s narrative is a riveting journey mapping the route of two restless women and their search for fulfillment.

November 15, 2017
One woman investigates the life and mysterious disappearance of the promising free-spirited writer Barbara Follett (1914-1939) while attempting to retain her own sense of freedom within her marriage.As a young woman, Smith "was ambivalent about marriage." She was not ready to take on the domesticity, set routines, and stereotypical family life that she believed anchored one firmly to a place and responsibilities. Though she loved her fiance and shared his love of adventure, she wondered if there was a way to be together and yet still remain untethered enough to avoid the traditional roles she grew up with. While working on a writing project on Follett, Smith could not help but note the similarities to her own life's struggles and desires for freedom and adventure. The domestic life was not a good fit for Follett, either, and after months of struggling to win her husband back from an affair, one night she disappeared, never to be seen again. In seeking to avoid the predictability of a traditional marriage, Smith and her now-husband set out to see Southeast Asia for a year while she attempted to discover where Follett went after that night, with theories ranging from sailing abroad to murder. After returning to the U.S., Smith and her husband, appetite for adventure whetted, embarked on a different experiment: open marriage. She admits that "historical examples [of open marriage] hardly suggested it was a path to unalloyed bliss." In discussing this arrangement, Smith does not attempt to hide her longing for freedom and experimentation under the guise of excuses; rather, she looks deeply and unflinchingly at her motivations and the resulting consequences. With alternating chapters that compare Follett's life, early adventures, and relational issues with Smith's, the narrative assumes an interesting mirroring effect. However, where Follett chose to steal off into the night, remaining a mystery, Smith decided to be seen, blemishes and all.A bravely introspective tale of wanderlust and lustful wandering.

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November 15, 2017
Days before her wedding, Smith begins to feel trapped. She loves her partner, P. J., and the adventurous spirit they share, but she questions whether marriage inevitably turns to monotony. This pull to create an autonomous life simultaneously fuels her research of Barbara Newhall Follett, a child prodigy who published her first novel, The House without Windows, in 1927 at age 12, and disappeared 13 years later. Smith is convinced that Follett vanished to escape a conventional life. Although part of Smith admires this possibility, she feels bound to friends and family in a way Follett may never have. Her solution is testing an open marriage: Could it afford her the perfect combination of stability and freedom? Though at times the dual stories beg to be told more deeply, and the theme of wanderlust is a tenuous link through the alternating chapters, Smith's candor is refreshing, and her search for Follett lends suspense. Both Smith and Follett will intrigue readers, and those looking for a memoir with a twist will find much to enjoy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)