NOTE: I really did not enjoy the book. Too nebulous. Character driven.

for readers who like character-driven novels, 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister by Joyce Carol Oates delves into the lives of two sisters:  Marguerite Fulmer, age 30, and Georgene, age 24, commonly referred to as simply M and G. In this March 2023 offering, M, who is a gifted artist, has vanished from a small town in New York where she teaches at an arts college.

Where is she? everyone asks. Since neither G nor her father know where M is, the rumors start to fly. The town wonders, was she pregnant? Had an abortion? On a trip? Surely not foul play?

As the police investigate the missing person case, the unattractive G slowly reveals that she hates her sister M, who is pretty, perfect, and the favorite daughter. An admittedly “not a nice person,” G envies her sister’s occupation, art studio, private life, and her talent. Expressing that she, on the other hand, has no life, G drags herself to a dead-end and boring  job at the post office while she has no friends.

But M’s life has not always been sunshine and roses as she had been attacked by a man while a teen. Not wanting any negative light shined on the Fulmer family, the parents truly brushed the incident under the rug while M never fully recovered. What are the chances that M’s attacker returned? What is the possibility that G has harmed her sister? What about her mentor at the college who has created paintings that resemble M but one more grisly than the next? Or will M remain one of the many women each year who go missing and never are found?

Joyce Carol Oates has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award for her novel them in 1969, and  two O. Henry Awards for her short stories.  Oates continues to live and write in Princeton, New Jersey, where she is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.