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Amos Lassen wrote on 03/28/2011:

Scott Heim, the author of the novel, “Mysterious Skin” has a new book out, “We Disappear”. It is a psychological thriller that looks at the issues of identity, trauma and illness and it is a wonderful read.
When the boy of a teenaged boy is discovered in a Kansas field, the murder becomes a haunting experience to Donna who has her own problems. She is a recently widowed woman who is suffering from cancer. The murder of the boy evokes memories of her past that she has suppressed. She looks to her son, Scott, a writer and a drug addict. To help her deal with herself and to discover more about others who have “disappeared”. Scott is dealing with is own problems but at the request of his mother, returns to Kansas from New York City. He is in the midst of dealing with his addiction to amphetamines and sleeping pills and is not being very successful in his fight to survive. However, the chance to help his mother could be his salvation. He soon discovers that his mother believes that she was kidnapped as a child by an older couple who later returned her to her family unharmed. She has been working on a book about children who have disappeared and Scott and a friend set out to find some answers. When a boy named Otis is found handcuffed in a secret basement location, questions come to fore and events that are difficult to understand begin. As Scott’s mother becomes more and more ill, Scott realizes that there must be some connection between Otis and other missing kids and eventually to him, himself.
Given the nature of the story, it is interesting to read such a beautifully written book that will keep you reading and guessing for a long time. The ending is a bit disappointing but it was fun getting there.

Grady Hqrp wrote on 05/25/2010:

It is rewarding to find book titles that can be taken on so many levels. Such is the case for Scot Heim's fine novel WE DISAPPEAR. Yes, the running story is the following of mother and son on the trail of missing children (and that story is sufficient reason to become engrossed in this compelling novel). But the characters Heim creates are all 'disappearing' - from the descending vitality of Donna the mother whose battle with lymphoma is a losing one and she is disappearing into death, to the mind state of her gay son Scott whose life centers on smoking and snorting crystal meth and balancing his slow disappearance from reality with heavy doses of Ambein sleeping pills, to the all but disappeared presence of Alice (Scott's sister who can no longer cope with Scott's drugs or her mother's prolonged futile chemotherapy, to the disappearances of Donna's friend Dolores into the bourbon glass, to the disappearance of Gavin - the drug source for the addicted Scott. Sounds too far fetched to be true? No, not in the skilled hands of Heim who knows well how to build characters so that we visualize them with ease and thus take note of their varying forms of disappearing.

But the main story line is Donna's preoccupation with disappearing children, a topic she has made her life's work and the trail for which she has called her son Scott from his New York stupor to help her complete. Together they make an odd but ultimately endearing couple as they follow clues for reported missing (read 'kidnapped') children whose bodies are recovered after some ungainly pasts. In the end it is a tale that Donna shares with Scott, his sister Alice, and her friend Dolores - a tale that unveils secrets of Donna's childhood that are shocking and puzzling. In the midst of this search there appears a young teenager Otis who winds up kidnapped in Donna's basement and with whom Scott discovers the secrets Donna has shrouded.

This may sound like a cast of misfits about whom we could care little, but in Scott Heim's eloquent prose we grow into the minds of these folks from Kansas and become inextricably involved in the conundrums they each present. Heim understands addiction, suffering, the dying process, and the need for returning to the womb that mother's, no matter how loony, represent. This is a story that could be excerpted purely for the descriptions of the lonely plains of Kansas and the atmospheres of the seasons. It simply is a fine read, on every level.

Grady Harp

Todd wrote on 05/11/2008:

Another great novel from Scott Heim, Memories unroll slowly in this novel until it all becomes clear in the end. The story pushes and pulls you through and becomes a real page turner. Great examination of a mother/son/sister relationship.