Missing women and others

In "Missing Women," which E. Annie Proulx selected for The Best American Short Stories 1997, we learn about a search for three women who have mysteriously vanished - a mother, her daughter, and her daughter's friend - and are asked to imagine the circumstances of their lives and what their disappearance means for us as readers. Yet these three women seem to have been absent long before their physical disappearances although many friends show up to carry on a search, no one seems to know much about them.

In "Meals and Between Meals," an overweight woman tries to recover her dignity while sorting out her relationship with a jailed convict. And in "Prodigy," a young man becomes obsessed with a ten-year-old girl, a violinist he has seen only on television, and whose appearance changes his life. In Missing Women and Others, June Spence gives voice to the inner lives of misunderstood or marginalized characters.