Portland Public Library

The day that went missing, a family's story, Richard Beard

eng

contains biographical information

no index present

non fiction

The day that went missing

1028521670

Richard Beard

a family's story

"Life changes in an instant. On a family summer holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Nicholas and his brother Richard are jumping in the waves. Suddenly Nicholas is out of his depth. He isn't, and then he is. He drowns. Richard and his other brothers don't attend the funeral, and, incredibly, the family returns immediately to the same cottage--to complete the holiday, to carry on. They soon stop speaking of the catastrophe. Their epic act of collective denial writes Nicky out of the family memory. Nearly forty years later, Richard Beard is haunted by the missing grief of his childhood. Not knowing even the date of the accident or the name of the beach where his brother died, he sets out on a painstaking investigation to rebuild Nicky's life, and ultimately to re-create the precise events on the day of the accident. Who was Nicky? Why did the family react as they did? And what actually happened? [This book] is as intensely personal as any tragedy. It is a heartrending tale of guilt and forgiveness, of reckoning with unspeakable loss. But above all, it is a brother's most tender act of remembrance, and one man's brave act of survival."--Dust jacket flap

What will survive -- 18th August 1978 -- Words are singularly useless