On Chapel Sands: My mother and other missing persons

(Paperback)

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The Sunday Times bestseller - Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, uncovers the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child **THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD** 'A modern masterpiece' Guardian Uncovering the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child- Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story. Autumn 1929 - a young girl is kidnapped from a beach. Five agonising days go by before she is discovered safe and well in a nearby village. The child remembers nothing of these events and at home, nobody ever speaks of them again. Decades later, Laura Cumming delves into the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance. Examining everything from old family photos to letters, tickets and recipes, she uncovers a series of secrets and lies perpetuated not just by her family but by the whole community and in doing so unlocks a mystery almost a century old. 'A moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life' Sunday Times Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize

Reviews

*Memoir of the Year* How we see -- and who see and what secrets they choose to share -- is at the heart of this exquisitely composed memoir... A peerless detective story that keeps you guessing to the end * The Sunday Times *
On Chapel Sands is much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece -- John Carey * Sunday Times *
Cumming skilfully withholds key twists in the tale, revealing them at just the right moment. There are surprises, but no shocks. Her prose is too elegant for such gaudiness composed and restrained but empathetic -- Leaf Arbuthnot * The Times *
Brilliant... This book is a love letter to her [Cumming's] mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine though. It's also an intimate portrait of a village community, with its storybook characters (butcher, baker, dairyman, bell-ringer, gravedigger) and their wonderful old-fashioned names -- Blake Morrison * Guardian *
By turns beautiful, wistful, and ominous the reasons behind the kidnap, and the repurcussions, are every bit as complex as any served up by fiction, and, oddly enough, the dnouement -- or succession of dnouements -- is just as satisfying, perhaps more so... a meditation on the way some people disappear, and time erases memory... so familiar as to be universal, and will probably ring bells with all but the sunniest reader (***** Five Stars) -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *

Author Bio

Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of the Observer since 1999. Her book, The Vanishing Man- In Pursuit of Velazquez, was Book of the Week on Radio 4, Wall Street Journal Book of the Year and a New York Times bestseller. It won the 2017 James Tait Black Biography Prize and was published to critical acclaim ('A riveting detective story- readers will be spellbound' Colm T ibin). Her first book, A Face to the World- On Self-Portraits, was described by Nick Hornby as 'Brilliant, fizzing with ideas not just about art but human nature' and by Julian Barnes as 'that rare item- an art book where the text is so enthralling that the pictures almost seem like an interruption'.