Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets by Wills, Clair
Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets by Wills, Clair

Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets

How far would you go for the missing? Blending private and public history, cultural analysis, family memoir,...
$49.17 AUD
$49.17 AUD
SKU: 9781250371928
Product Type: Books
Please hurry! Only 96 left in stock
Author: Clair Wills
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Subtotal: $49.17
Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets by Wills, Clair

Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets

$49.17
Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets by Wills, Clair

Missing Persons: Or, My Grandmother's Secrets

$49.17
Author: Clair Wills
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Description

How far would you go for the missing?

Blending private and public history, cultural analysis, family memoir, and autobiography, Clair Wills explores profound questions about memory, loss, motherhood, and emigration. She traces a history of sexual secrecy through four generations of unplanned pregnancies in her own family, stretching from the 1890s to the 1980s and from the West of Ireland to Massachusetts, London, and the English countryside, dramatizing the power of secret-keeping as a form of care, but also as a form of violence and exclusion.

At the heart of her search is a cousin who went missing from her own family, born in a mother-and-baby home in the 1950s, and brought up in an institution. Wills asks not only what happened, but why? Why did families consent to the institutional care and control of unmarried mothers and their children? Why did the system make sense to ordinary families, and how can we make sense of it now? What questions should we be asking about guilt, blame, and responsibility?

In order to uncover how people thought about illicit sex, illegitimacy, and institutions, Wills follows the tracks laid down in family stories and anecdotes. She interprets the gaps as places where the past was both preserved and disavowed. We are all born into families, regardless of whether we are allowed to belong to them. In Missing Persons, Wills asks us to undertake a radical reshaping of our idea of the family. We are all part of the historical archive--the remembering and forgetting is in us, whether we like it or not.

Author: Clair Wills
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 04/01/2025
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.30w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781250371928

About the Author
Clair Wills is the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain, named the Irish Times International Nonfiction Book of the Year, and That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War, winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize, among other works. She is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. She lives in London
Shipping & Return

Returns Policy

You may return most new, unopened items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. We'll also pay the return shipping costs if the return is a result of our error (you received an incorrect or defective item, etc.).

You should expect to receive your refund within four weeks of giving your package to the return shipper, however, in many cases you will receive a refund more quickly. This time period includes the transit time for us to receive your return from the shipper (5 to 10 business days), the time it takes us to process your return once we receive it (3 to 5 business days), and the time it takes your bank to process our refund request (5 to 10 business days).

If you need to return an item, simply login to your account, view the order using the "Complete Orders" link under the My Account menu and click the Return Item(s) button. We'll notify you via e-mail of your refund once we've received and processed the returned item.

Shipping

We can ship to virtually any address in the world. Note that there are restrictions on some products, and some products cannot be shipped to international destinations.

When you place an order, we will estimate shipping and delivery dates for you based on the availability of your items and the shipping options you choose. Depending on the shipping provider you choose, shipping date estimates may appear on the shipping quotes page.

Please also note that the shipping rates for many items we sell are weight-based. The weight of any such item can be found on its detail page. To reflect the policies of the shipping companies we use, all weights will be rounded up to the next full pound.

Review