“The Lost Story”: The Strongest Magic There Is https://ift.tt/xpUQWHi
For those who were mystified and entranced by Meg Shaffer’s debut novel, The Wishing Game, do not hesitate to dive into her sophomore novel, The Lost Story. In fact, for anyone searching for a flight-of-fancy or a book to get utterly lost in, this is your book. C.S. Lewis once said, “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” Well, that day is now, and how appropriate for it to arrive with a novel inspired by Lewis’s very own The Chronicles of Narnia.
Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell are an unlikely pair. Jeremy is a well-bred native of England, while Rafe is a small-town boy with an even smaller-minded father who doesn’t support his passion and artistic talent. Yet, during their freshman year of high school, they become the best of friends. It is because of their inseparability that the two go missing together in West Virginia’s Red Crow State Park. They are gone for six months and are presumed dead. So it is a shock when they emerge from the woods not only alive, but physically stronger, well-fed, and taller. The authorities are unable to glean much information from their missing months, given that Rafe returns with short-term memory loss, post-traumatic stress, unexplainable scars on his back, and sleepwalking issues. Meanwhile, Jeremy leaves town and returns to England with his mother.
Fifteen years later, Jeremy is a quasi-celebrity, famous for finding lost or missing women and girls. Meanwhile, Rafe has become a recluse, sequestered in his old family cabin in the woods. After over a decade of no communication, Jeremy is obliged to seek out his long-lost friend when Emilie, an eccentric, antisocial young vet-tech, asks Jeremy to help find her missing half-sister, Shannon. The catch? Shannon’s last known whereabouts also happen to be notorious Red Crow State Park, where Jeremy and Rafe disappeared a few years after Shannon.
Together, Emilie, Rafe, and Jeremy — along with Emilie’s pet fancy rat, Fritz — form a motley crew who set out on the path in the woods that leads to an unfolding of magic, enchantment, beauty, and pain. We discover there is more to Emilie and her lost sister’s story. We discover there are reasons why only Jeremy remembers their missing time and why he had to sever ties with his once best friend. However, the unfolding of all their stories, watching them all find their way back together, is what is at the core of this present-day fairy tale.
Perhaps what’s so exciting about Shaffer’s writing is the immersive journey and her vivid detailing of fantastical, magical realms:
“These were not West Virginia trees. If he could trust his eyes, then these trees soared a thousand feet too tall, the trunks a hundred feet too thick. But they weren’t like the pictures he’d seen of the sequoias in California. Those were ancient and massive evergreens. These trees had leaves every color of Easter — pink and green and blue and yellow and white. They looked like the trees he might have scribbled as a child, five different fat Crayola markers to color one tree. Yes, these were a child’s imaginary trees made real somehow.”
Literal red crows hold significance in the land of Shanandoah (spelling is relevant here, reader!), and unicorns are floofy; delightful creatures, princesses, princes, knights, and ghosts all have their place in The Lost Story.
But while we are admiring her world-building, we are also falling in love with her highly likeable and idiosyncratic characters, and enjoying her laugh-out-loud funny one-liners and anecdotes — there is never a shortage of whimsy here. Still, Shaffer manages to explore profound subject matter, such as adoption, substance abuse, domestic and family violence, depression, suicide, mental illness, and LGBTQ+ representation. As unexpected romances bloom, so do explorations of self, found families, and neurodivergence.
If these details aren’t enough to lure you in, then perhaps the casual mentions of the Gilmore Girls and Batman will cinch the deal. Or, perhaps the author’s obsession with and frequent reference to Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks are exactly what you’ll relate to. In fact, you can listen to the music soundtrack compiled by the publisher here. Whether it’s the lush prose, loveable characters, fantastical realms, or pop culture references, this book has a little something for everyone.
What might not be as welcomed by everyone, though, is the entrance of the Storyteller Corner. Every few chapters, a Storyteller breaks into the third-person point of view. For example, the Storyteller says,
“You may already be wondering why I’m intruding onto the story like this, which is a fair question. But this is a fairy tale and fairy tales play by their own rules. I wanted you to be aware of these rules so we could, pun intended, all be on the same page.”
While this device might be intrusive to some, I promise it pays off in the end if you can abide the interruptions.
Overall, The Lost Story is a charming fairy tale, complete with friends and foes, with wonder and mystery hidden under every nook and cranny, but told in such a soft, subtle way that the reader feels completely embraced by its enchantment and is organically folded into the prose. Perhaps the best quote from the book says it all:
“All books are magic. An object that can take you to another world without even leaving your room? A story written by a stranger and yet it seems they wrote it just for you or to you? Loving and hating people made out of ink and paper, not flesh and blood? Yes, books are magic. Maybe even the strongest magic there is.”
Shaffer has such a knack for combining the magical and the mundane, and I, for one, cannot wait to see what she delivers next.
The Lost Story
By Meg Shaffer
Ballantine Books
Published July 16, 2024
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