Joyce Carol Oates: Mother, Missing

On Mother's Day in 2004 the 31-year-old Nikki has lunch with her mother, and assorted other guests. In the time-honoured way of such occasions, there is a row.

Nikki, the wayward black sheep of the family — which now consists of naughty Nikki, good married sister Clare, and the saintly widowed mom — is having a fling with a married man. Mom doesn't approve. Nikki leaves the lunch and promises: "I will punish her, I won't call her tomorrow."

Cue hollow laughter from the gods. Nikki will call her mom after a suitable period but mom won't be answering any more. Mom is dead, murdered in her garage. That's not giving anything away because, despite the title, there is no mystery. Mother, Missing is published under the title Missing Mom in the United States which, while being one of the ugliest book names in a while, is more accurate.

This is a book about a daughter missing her mother and all of the attendant memories and regrets thus prescribed. Prescribed because on the opening page of the book the narrator tells us: "This is the story of missing my mother. One day, in a way unique to you, it will be your story too."

There is a warning about how, should you wake one day to find your mother has been murdered in a garage, it will be too late.

But mom, despite her goodness, her good heart, her unfailingly cheerful nature, her habit of collecting waifs and strays, the way she makes bread and loves feeding people, is not a memorable character. She is like an advertisement for motherhood: a stoic whose signature dish is Hawaiian Chicken Supreme.

And Nikki is not an endearing character either. We come to know a lot about her hair, which sounds post-punk and this in 2004, and her bizarre get-ups, and her grief, but she's not very interesting.

She moves into mom's house, takes over her life and begins baking. This is a way of dealing with her grief; this is about as much as ever happens. We know there will be changes in her life. By the time they come, we don't really care.

What Oates has attempted to do is raise a memorial to domesticity, to little lives lived in kitchens and small communities, but what a long time she takes to do it. She is a big-name writer, too big a name, presumably for an editor to point out that a page which consists mostly of "WHY?" over and over, is an indulgence too far.

* Michele Hewitson is a Herald features writer
* Fourth Estate, $36