Three years ago, Madison Culver disappeared from a forest in Oregon while choosing a Christmas tree with her family. Her family is harrowed trying to find her, and the police have considered her gone. The Culvers rope in Naomi, a private investigator, to help find Madison, who would be eight years old now. Madison, slowly coming to terms with her new normal, is held captive by a man only identified as Mr. B. Naomi relentlessly pursues the case using her knack for finding missing children. Known as the Child Finder, she can find clues and understand the disposition of missing children and their captors, the way police cannot. And she is relentless at it owing to her blurred yet troubling experience of being held captive herself. While she is trying to find Madison, Naomi finds herself going back to her own past, all the while remembering new details of her own abduction.
“Hope springs eternal. Just remember: so does evil. Sometimes they are impossible to tell apart.”
The author, Rene Denfeld, vividly describes how a captive girl thinks of herself as the snow girl and comprehends her surroundings as a normal life. She fears her captor and remains submissive. The book deals with sensitive issues of child kidnapping and it can be upsetting at times. The narrative gives justice to treating these issues with respect, all the while emphasizing on the underlying morals of hope, love, and longing. Readers can live through the experiences of a little girl who comes to understand what freedom means. We can empathise with an eight-year-old who escapes into her fantasies of a snow girl, her mind being the only place where she is free. Despite the subtle and poetic description of the captor’s past, we never end up empathising with him. We also get glimpses of the anguish and melancholy of Naomi, who is in the self-imposed confines of her dark past. The characters of the book are strongly built and adequate care is taken to avoid being too graphic in describing child abuse. The story is told from the perspectives of both, Naomi and Madison. There are also times when their feelings coincide, such as the time when they both felt a loss of control and eventually grabbed the first opportunity to help themselves out of their confines.
While reading this book, I could as effortlessly think and become Naomi as I could Madison. Through the strong female perspective, we end up giving thought to varied interpretations of freedom: freedom from grief, freedom from our own confinements, freedom from the monsters within us. Denfeld’s first book, The Enchanted, also has an element of magical realism, however The Child Finder beautifully entwines it with reality. Although it deals with heart-breaking incidents, I could read through them peacefully. And I think this is why I loved the book. It is almost lyrical, engrossing, quietly powerful and mildly unsettling. There are other themes explored too. However, those of entrapment and survival were the most intriguing for me.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves a seamless yet powerful read. The book now has a prequel too, which follows Naomi on her new quest. For this month’s theme about Freedom, let’s explore lesser known perceptions of freedom. I hope this book finds a place in your all-time-favourite lists too!
“This is something I know: no matter how far you have run, no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found.”
Sanjeevani Deshpande
Visiting Faculty (Japanese)