NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NONFICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Velazquez shares a riveting true story “with as many twists and turns as any … Velazquez shares a riveting true story “with as many twists and turns as any mystery” (Los Angeles Times) describing her mother’s mysterious kidnapping as a toddler in a small English coastal village–“an incredible and incredibly unusual book about family secrets” (Nick Hornby, The Believer).
In the fall of 1929, when Laura Cumming’s mother was three years old, she was kidnapped from a beach on the Lincolnshire coast of England. There were no screams when she was taken, suggesting the culprit was someone familiar to her, and when she turned up again in a nearby village several days later, she was happy and in perfect health. No one was ever accused of a crime. The incident quickly faded from her memory, and her parents never discussed it. To the contrary, they deliberately hid it from her, and she did not learn of it for half a century.
This was not the only secret her parents kept from her. For many years, while raising her in draconian isolation and protectiveness, they also hid the fact that she’d been adopted, and that shortly after the kidnapping, her name was changed from Grace to Betty.
“Both page-turning and richly absorbing” (The Providence Journal), On Chapel Sands (originally titled Five Days Gone) unspools the tale of Cumming’s mother’s life and unravels the multiple mysteries at its core. Using photographs from the time, historical documents, and works of art, Cumming investigates this case of stolen identity with the toolset of a detective and the unique intimacy of a daughter trying to understand her family’s past and its legacies. “Brilliant” (The Guardian) and “a story told with such depth of feeling and observation and such lyrical writing I couldn’t put it down” (Anna Quindlen), On Chapel Sands is a masterful blend of memoir and history, an extraordinary personal narrative unlike any other.
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I don’t usually read memoir, as I normally don’t find it very interesting. And this quiet narrative of family strife would normally cause me not to continue due to boredom. But there was something that kept me going and enjoying this narrative until the very end. For one thing, it is very well told. The author chooses to cast the early part of the memoir through her mother’s eyes, the innocent protagonist around whom all these events swirl, who is kept in the dark about their significance. Gradually she shifts to her own point of view, as the concerned daughter of Grace Blanchard/Betty Elstead/Elizabeth Cumming.
I loved Kate Reading’s melodious voice, but at this point I wish she had done something to distinguish mother from daughter. Of course, we expect Laura to sound like her mother Elizabeth, but even so, the narrator could have accentuated the differences. For example, I sound very much like my sister. But I speak faster than she does. The unfortunate effect of this lack of distinctiveness between the voices of mother and daughter was that I kept being pulled up short, not sure who I was listening to.
I loved the ending of this memoir, even though it raised more questions. The man at the center of the love-triangle, George, is telling the absent mother Hilda that he loves her. So I could not help wondering if that meant that he was punishing himself by staying with Vida, the woman he was married to. Four stars.
This is beautifully written from the heart, and readers who are really into great art will find plenty to identify with. If you’re looking for true crime, however, this is probably not for you. It’s more a story of families and time.
I saw this book advertised on Facebook, and it looked interesting, so I thought I would give it a try. For me, it never lived up to my expectations.
In the late 1920s, young Betty Elston was lured away from her mother on Chapel Sands, and later returned, unharmed to her family. She was clean, but dressed in different clothing. What Betty’s daughter, Laura, discovers is that this was not a sinister kidnapping, but a return to Betty (Grace’s) birth mother. It seems, that unbeknownst to Betty, she was born as Grace, and brought to live with her father and mother, George and Veda Elston. She grew up to believe that she had been adopted by George and Veda. However, as the story progresses, she was actually the child of George and Hilda, a young woman that George impregnated during an affair. Hilda and her family had taken Grace/Betty back for 5 days until she was returned. Betty never really talked about this, although her daughter, Laura, begged her to tell her story. She wrote a small snippet of her life for Laura.
Laura and her mother were able to research that Hilda had more children, and later in life, Betty/Grace and Laura got to meet them.
I had high hopes for this book, but I thought it was dry.
#FiveDaysGone #LauraCumming