Books like 'Among the Missing'
Readers who enjoyed Among the Missing by Dan Chaon also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological north-america usa literary-fiction drama humor satire
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Collected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRaymond Carver’s spare dramas of loneliness, despair, and troubled relationships breathed new life into the American short story of the 1970s and ’80s. In collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Carver wrote with unflinching exactness about men and women enduring lives on the knife-edge of poverty and other deprivations... -
![Tainted: Lance and Mary by Tess Thompson]()
Tainted: Lance and Mary by Tess Thompson
Rated: 4.70 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOne career-ending mistake sends Lance Mullen home to Cliffside Bay in search of a fresh start. And in no time at all, home begins to feel like the place he was always meant to be. With his beautiful new beach house, his friends and family close by, and a profitable business to grow, life really is good. That is until his heart tries to wreck everything... again... -
![Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace]()
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![Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace]()
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 60 ratingsA gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America... -
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![What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver]()
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsAlternate-cover edition can be found here In his second collection, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated and beloved short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark... -
![Night in Question by Tobias Wolff]()
Night in Question by Tobias Wolff
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAuthor most recently of a stunningly clear-eyed memoir, This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff's new collection of short stories maintains a similar steady gaze on his fictional creations. The author steels himself with a fine sense of irony and an awareness of moral ambiguity against the unjust suffering that is part of life... -
![Running the Light by Sam Tallent, Doug Stanhope]()
Running the Light by Sam Tallent, Doug Stanhope
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA bona fide “instant classic” (Doug Stanhope) novel that tells the story of a road comic crashing and burning by acclaimed comedian Sam TallentBilly Ray Schafer stepped off the plane in Amarillo, Texas, with twenty-six hundred dollars tucked down the leg of his black ostrich-skin cowboy boot... -
![The Mustachioed Woman of Shanghai by Isham Cook]()
The Mustachioed Woman of Shanghai by Isham Cook
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWant to know what's really going on with relationships in China today? It is the Shanghai of courtesans and concubines, danger and decadence, updated to 2020. American expat author Isham Cook has disappeared... -
![Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel]()
Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVincent Spinetti is an archetypal tortured artist ? a sensitive young writer who falls victim to alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love... -
![The House of Gazes by Daniele Mencarelli]()
The House of Gazes by Daniele Mencarelli
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWinner of the 2019 John Fante First Novel Prize The critically acclaimed novel from the author of Everything Calls for Salvation , adapted into a Netflix Original series, is a powerful coming-of-age story about loss, identity, and rebirth Daniele is a young poet plagued by an unknown darkness, “an invisible disease of the heart, or of the mind...Categorized as:
literary-fiction drama fiction contemporary audiobook coming-of-age psychological book -
![Saint Richard Parker by Merlin Franco]()
Saint Richard Parker by Merlin Franco
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHis search for love and enlightenment across India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia...Ace businessman, writer, and investigative journalist Richard Parker loses his job when he exposes the vegetarian CEO of his newspaper as a beef exporter. Accused of misconduct and forced to dissolve his company, he retreats to his wretched little village... -
![The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth]()
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis novel in verse about a group of California yuppies was one of the most highly praised books of 1986 and a bestseller on both coasts... -
![Shtum by Jem Lester]()
Shtum by Jem Lester
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPowerful, darkly funny and heart-breaking, Shtum is a story about fathers and sons, autism, and dysfunctional relationships.Ben Jewell has hit breaking point. His ten-year-old son Jonah has severe autism and Ben and his wife, Emma, are struggling to cope... -
![More or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova]()
More or Less Maddy by Lisa Genova
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA breathless, riveting novel about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who rejects the stability and approval found in a traditionally “normal” life for a career in stand-up comedy.Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out freshman at NYU. Between schoolwork, exams, navigating life in the city, and a recent breakup, it’s normal to be feeling overwhelmed... -
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![Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon]()
Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsUtterly original and wildly entertaining, with a protagonist whose life is a total mess, Killing Me is the laugh-out-loud funny thriller we never knew we needed.She escaped a serial killer. Then things got weird... -
![Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt]()
Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEric-Emmanuel Schmitt is the author of three luminous collections of short stories published by Europa Editions, including the bestselling Most Beautiful Book in the World, and one novel, Three Women in a Mirror... -
![Five Steps to Happy by Ella Dove]()
Five Steps to Happy by Ella Dove
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'An up-lit treasure' Red magazine Life can change in a heartbeat... When struggling actress Heidi has a life-changing accident aged 32, her world falls apart. Stuck in hospital and unable to walk, her only companion is Maud, the elderly lady in the bed next to hers...Categorized as:
drama literary-fiction humor fiction womens-fiction contemporary historical-fiction psychological -
![Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh]()
Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA spectacular return of the wild, dissolute gang from Trainspotting, from the author the New York Times called “Blisteringly funny…. ”The gang from Trainspotting have mostly cleaned up their act…until they are drawn back together to Scotland for one last scheme—a scheme one of them won’t survive. It’s an action-packed, hilarious and rollicking trip, as well as a moving elegy to the crew... -
![Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad]()
Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA pop-saturated epic novel about the second man on the moon, and the quiet thirty-year-old gardener who idolizes him. A story of unconventional psychiatry, the Faroe Islands, amateur boat building, and the journey across the space that divides us from other people: a journey as remote and dangerous as the trip to the moon itself... -
![Like Life by Lorrie Moore]()
Like Life by Lorrie Moore
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Like Life's eight exquisite stories, Lorrie Moore's characters stumble through their daily existence. These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can't quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall... -
![The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph]()
The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOusep Chacko, journalist and failed novelist, prides himself on being “the last of the real men.” This includes waking neighbors upon returning late from the pub. His wife Mariamma stretches their money, raises their two boys, and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasizes about Ousep dying... -
![Dreams from Bunker Hill by John Fante]()
Dreams from Bunker Hill by John Fante
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMy first collision with fame was hardly memorable. I was a busboy at Marx's Deli. The year was 1934. The place was Third and Hill, Los Angeles. I was twenty-one years old, living in a world bounded on the west by Bunker Hill, on the east by Los Angeles Street, on the south by Pershing Square, and on the north by Civic Center... -
![One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello]()
One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe great Pirandello's (1867-1936) 1926 novel, previously published here in 1933 in another translation, synthesizes the themes and personalities that illuminate such dramas as Six Characters in Search of an Author... -
![Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier, Wendy Katzman]()
Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier, Wendy Katzman
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThree women. Three daughters. And a promise that they'll each get what they deserve.College admissions season at Seattle's Elliott Bay Academy is marked by glowing acceptances from top-tier institutions, and students as impressive as their parents are ambitious... -
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![Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg]()
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsFrom the creator and executive producer of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love--the best and worst thing in the universeWritten with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg's stories will make readers laugh, weep, and shiver in uncomfortably delicious... -
![Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf, Kate Rudd]()
Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf, Kate Rudd
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn her latest ripped-from-the-headlines tour de force, New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf shows how one small mistake can have life-altering consequences.…Veteran social worker Ellen Moore has seen the worst side of humanity—the vilest acts one person can commit against another. She is a fiercely dedicated children's advocate and a devoted mother and wife... -
![Come Back to Me by Sara Foster]()
Come Back to Me by Sara Foster
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDo you have to honour a promise you made in the past if it means losing all you have now? When Mark introduces his date, Julia, to Chloe and her husband at a London restaurant, it's obvious that something is very, very wrong. Alex and Julia pretend not to know one another, but the shocked expressions on their faces tell another story... -
![Tall Oaks by Chris Whitaker]()
Tall Oaks by Chris Whitaker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFor fans of Twin Peaks and The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair, this brilliant debut is dark yet hilarious, suspenseful and sad.Everyone has a secret in Tall Oaks . . .When three-year-old Harry goes missing, the whole of America turns its attention to one small town. Everyone is eager to help. Everyone is a suspect.Desperate mother Jess, whose grief is driving her to extreme measures... -
![Runaway Train by Lee Matthew Goldberg]()
Runaway Train by Lee Matthew Goldberg
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThey told me I was an out-of-control train about to crash…Everything changed when the police officer knocked on the door to tell me – a 16-year-old – that my older sister Kristen had died of a brain aneurysm. Cue the start of my parents neglecting me and my whole life spiraling out of control.I decided now was the perfect time to skip town... -
![The Speed of Light: A Novel by Elissa Grossell Dickey]()
The Speed of Light: A Novel by Elissa Grossell Dickey
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSimone is trying her best not to think of what she’s lost. Diagnosed with MS, she awaits the results of another anxiety-inducing MRI. She’s just walked away from Connor, “a fixer” but possibly the love of her life. And nearing the holidays, the sights and sounds of winter in South Dakota only prick memories of better years gone by... -
![You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett]()
You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn his bestselling and lavishly praised first book of stories, Adam Haslett explores lives that appear shuttered by loss and discovers entire worlds hidden inside them. The impact is at once harrowing and thrilling.An elderly inventor, burning with manic creativity, tries to reconcile with his estranged gay son...Categorized as:
humor literary-fiction satire 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook coming-of-age -
![Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino]()
Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEighteen months and eleven lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month... -
![The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave]()
The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLaura Dave continues Hannah Hall’s pulse-pounding journey in the riveting and deeply moving sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling blockbuster and Apple TV+ show, The Last Thing He Told Me.Five years after her husband, Owen, disappeared, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have settled into a new life in Southern California... -
![The Edge of Anything by Nora Shalaway Carpenter]()
The Edge of Anything by Nora Shalaway Carpenter
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA *Kirkus Reviews* Best Book of 2020One of A Mighty Girl's Best Books of the YearFinalist for the Cybils AwardsLen is a loner teen photographer haunted by a past that’s stagnated her work and left her terrified she’s losing her mind. Sage is a high school volleyball star desperate to find a way around her sudden medical disqualification. Both girls need college scholarships...Categorized as:
north-america usa literary-fiction drama north-carolina young-adult contemporary mental-illness -
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![The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant]()
The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNorman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan... -
![Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz]()
Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn NPR Best Book of 2015Love and sacrifice intertwine in this brilliant debut of rare beauty about a girl dealing with her mother’s schizophrenia and her own mental illness.Fig’s world lies somewhere between reality and fantasy.But as she watches Mama slowly come undone, it becomes hard to tell what is real and what is not, what is fun and what is frightening...Categorized as:
north-america usa literary-fiction arkansas kansas young-adult mental-illness fiction -
![Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper]()
Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsJonathan Tropper’s novel The Book of Joe dazzled critics and readers alike with its heartfelt blend of humor and pathos. Now Tropper brings all that—and more—to an irresistible new novel. In Everything Changes , Tropper delivers a touching, wickedly funny new tale about love, loss, and the perils of a well-planned life. To all appearances, Zachary King is a man with luck on his side... -
![I Regret Everything: A Love Story by Seth Greenland]()
I Regret Everything: A Love Story by Seth Greenland
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA modern love story, I Regret Everything confronts the oceanic uncertainty of what it means to be alive, and in love. Jeremy Best, a Manhattan-based trusts and estates lawyer, leads a second life as published poet Jinx Bell. To his boss’s daughter, Spaulding Simonson, at 33 years old, Jeremy is already halfway to dead. When Spaulding, an aspiring 19-year-old writer, discovers Mr... -
![All the Little Animals by Walker Hamilton]()
All the Little Animals by Walker Hamilton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA beguiling, unsettling and ultimately moving modern fable set on the byways of rural Cornwall; a story about running away, the search for acceptance and burying road-kill.Bobby is a 31 year old man with the mind of a small, frightened boy. He has run away from his privileged but abusive London home to rural Cornwall...Categorized as:
drama literary-fiction action-adventure adult book coming-of-age contemporary fiction -
![The Allegations by Mark Lawson]()
The Allegations by Mark Lawson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOn the morning after he has celebrated his 60th birthday party at a celebrity-filled party, Ned Marriott is in bed with his partner, Emma, when there's a knock on the door. Detectives from the London police force's 'Operation Millpond' have come to arrest him over an allegation of sexual assault... -
![The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas by Yan Lianke]()
The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas by Yan Lianke
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOver the last decade, Yan Lianke has been continually heralded as one of the "best contemporary Chinese writers" (The Independent) and "one of the country's fiercest satirists" (The Guardian). Among many awards and honors, he has been twice a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize and he was awarded the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize for his impressive body of work...Categorized as:
satire humor literary-fiction fiction magical-realism contemporary journey historical-fiction -
![The Bright Side of Going Dark by Kelly Harms]()
The Bright Side of Going Dark by Kelly Harms
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler comes a fresh, funny, and thoughtful story about going off the grid in order to truly live. As one of the most popular influencers on social media, Mia Bell has lived her life online for years... -
![A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen]()
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA New York Times Editors' Choice Named a Best Book of 2018 by Bookforum, Nylon, Esquire, and Vulture"This artful and autumnal novel, published in high summer, is a gift to those who wish to receive it."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Hilarious, heartbreaking . . . A Terrible Country may be one of the best books you'll read this year... -
![The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin]()
The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWith "echoes of Of Mice and Men" (The Bookseller, UK), The Motel Life explores the frustrations and failed dreams of two Nevada brothers — on the run after a hit-and-run accident — who, forgotten by society, and short on luck and hope, desperately cling to the edge of modern life...Categorized as:
literary-fiction north-america usa 21st-century book coming-of-age contemporary crime -
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![Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken]()
Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFrom the author of the beloved novel The Giant’s House comes a beautiful new story collection. In “Property,” a young scholar, grieving the sudden death of his wife, decides to refurbish a rental house by removing his landlord’s possessions... -
![Staggerford by Jon Hassler]()
Staggerford by Jon Hassler
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIt is only a week in the life of a 35-year old bachelor school teacher in a small Minnesota town. But it is an extraodinary week, filled with the poetry of living, the sweetness of expectation, and the glory of surprise that can change a life forever... -
![House of God, The by Samuel Shem]()
House of God, The by Samuel Shem
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNow a classic! The hilarious novel of the healing arts that reveals everything your doctor never wanted you to know. Six eager interns -- they saw themselves as modern saviors-to-be. They came from the top of their medical school class to the bottom of the hospital staff to serve a year in the time-honored tradition, racing to answer the flash of on-duty call lights and nubile nurses... -
![What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg]()
What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDo you ever really know your mother, your daughter, the people in your family? In this rich and rewarding new novel by the beloved bestselling author of Talk Before Sleep and The Pull of the Moon, a reunion between two sisters and their mother reveals how the secrets and complexities of the past have shaped the lives of the women in a family... -
![The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball]()
The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWith his debut novel, Samedi the Deafness, Jesse Ball emerged as one of our most extraordinary new writers. Now, Ball returns with this haunting tale of love and storytelling, hope and identity.When Selah Morse sees a young woman get hit by a speeding taxicab, he rushes her to the hospital. The girl has lost her memory; she is delirious and has no identification, so Selah poses as her boyfriend... -
![Things that Fall from the Sky by Kevin Brockmeier]()
Things that Fall from the Sky by Kevin Brockmeier
Rated: 3.91 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWeaving together loss and anxiety with fantastic elements and literary sleight-of-hand, Kevin Brockmeier’s richly imagined Things That Fall from the Sky views the nagging realities of the world through a hopeful lens. In the deftly told “These Hands,” a man named Lewis recounts his time babysitting a young girl and his inconsolable sense of loss after she is wrenched away...
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