How to Be Lost
Subtitle: A Novel
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: August 30, 2005
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 350
ISBN-13: 9780345483171
Subjects: Missing persons -- Fiction.; New Orleans (La.) -- Fiction.; Women travelers -- Fiction.; Waitresses -- Fiction.; Sisters -- Fiction.
Genres: Psychological fiction
First sentence: The afternoon before, I planned how I would tell her.
Description: Joseph and Isabelle Winters seem to have it all: a grand home in Holt, New York, a trio of radiant daughters, and a sense that they are safe in their affluent corner of America. But when five-year-old Ellie disappears, the fault lines within the family are exposed: Joseph, once a successful businessman, succumbs to his demons; Isabelle retreats into memories of her debutante days in Savannah; and Ellies bereft sisters grow apartMadeline reluctantly stays home, while Caroline runs away.

Fifteen years later, Caroline, now a New Orleans cocktail waitress, sees a photograph of a woman in a magazine. Convinced that it is Ellie all grown up, Caroline embarks on a search for her missing sister. Armed with copies of the photo, an amateur detective guide, and a cooler of Dixie beer, Caroline travels through the New Mexico desert, the mountains of Colorado, and the smoky underworld of Montana, determined to salvage her broken family.
Notes: Originally published in hardcover by MacAdam/Cage, San Francisco, 2004.
Includes Reader's Guide (p. 293-301) and Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion (p. 303-305).
Table of contents: class: section