Catherine Lacey is the guest. Her debut novel, Nobody Is Ever Missing, is due out from FSG Originals in July 2014. David Shields says "At the center of this artfully recursive narrative is an unspeakable abyss, from which the narrator has been unable to turn since her sister’s suicide. Elyria is astounded that other people can conduct their lives as though this abyss isn’t there; she’s wavering on the edge, and the effect is often genuinely terrifying. A dense, subtle series of meditations on domestication, estrangement, wildness, above all loss and absence." And Laura van den Berg raves “In Catherine Lacey’s virtuosic debut, a young woman hurls herself into the landscape of New Zealand in search of a way to break the frozen sea within. The story that follows is a gutsy, lyric meditation on identity, love, transformation, and what it means to be free. Nobody Is Ever Missing is a breathtakingly accomplished novel, and it establishes Catherine Lacey as a riveting new voice in contemporary fiction.” Monologue topics: traffic, the dentist, road rage, A-Ha, "Take On Me," emotional confusion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.