Nobody Is Ever Missing (novel)

Nobody Is Ever Missing is a 2014 debut novel by American writer Catherine Lacey published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Writing and publication

While working toward an MFA in non-fiction writing from Columbia University, Lacey worked on a book for four years, which she eventually abandoned. After she stopped working on that book, she began working on short stories; she eventually turned these into Nobody Is Ever Missing. Lacey had a breakthrough in writing from the point of view of the narrator and central character, Elyria, while writing a specific scene in which she was "narrating a letter to her husband".
The book's title comes from the John Berryman poem "Dream Song 29", published in Berryman's collection The Dream Songs.

Reception

In his review of Lacey's second novel, The Answers, Dwight Garner praised Nobody Is Ever Missing. Garner wrote that strong debut novels make him wary of an author's ability to produce a sophomore work of similar quality but he ultimately found his worries about the quality of The Answers unfounded.
In a review for The Guardian the novel was praised as "wry, surprising, and blackly funny." With the reviewer noting, "Lacey has produced a novel of uncomfortable power."