Hi, I’m looking for novel recommendations, please, with protagonists who choose to become ‘voluntarily missing’. People who choose to disappear, and invent a new life for themselves, and even a new themself for themselves. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
by ghost_written
49 Comments
*Catch Me If You Can* by Frank Abagnale?
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Where the Crawdads Sing
If you want really weird try *Infinite Ground* by Martin MacInnes
These Silent Woods Kimi C. Grant
Genuine Fraud by E Lockhart
If tomorrow comes by Sidney Sheldon. The protagonist doesn’t exactly “disappear” but she does stay in hiding and ensures nobody can track her.
John Krakauer’s “Into The Wild”
Wildly different books that involve “disappearing” in different ways, but:
*Where’d You Go, Bernadette*, by Maria Semple
*The Talented Mister Ripley*, by Patricia Highsmith
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
The Partner by John Grisham
The Last Flight – Julie Clark
Two different people decide to disappear by swapping plane tickets at an airport. Pretty cool thriller!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52652923
Sugar Street, Jonathan Dee. Read a review and thought I’d take a chance, was really good.
Doesn’t literally disappear, just figuratively in My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is about a guy that leaves his well to do life along with his wife and child and the rest of his family to become a bum fisherman in Knoxville Tennessee during the early 1950s.
Cross her heart by Sarah Pinborough
Does paper towns count?
Kind of a spoiler by answering your question but it happens maybe halfway through the book – Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin.
People Who Knew Me by Kim Hooper!
A woman uses 9/11 to fake her own death
Cover story by Susan Rigetti
Kinda similar to the story of the con artist Anna Sorokin, if you like that kinda stuff.
The Woman in the Wall by Patrice Kindl. She disappears but stays in the house.
Borrowed Lives by Laramie Dunaway
Kind of Enders Game. He winds up traveling the spaces instead of going home.
“My Side of the Mountain” and “Julie of the Wolves”
The hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared
The Robin Hobb Farseer and Fitz trilogies – the main guy several times tries to withdraw
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. A woman and her child are forced to flee via train tops to escape from a deadly drug cartel.
Rose Madder by Stephen King
Does it Hurt by H.D. Carlton
The Box Man by Kobo Abe, a brilliant novel about a man who breaks under the weight of his life and chooses to live on the streets out of a large cardboard box that he fashions into a wearable shelter.
Serotonin by Michelle hollebecq idk if it’s considered disappearing tho
A Road To Joy by Alexandra Stacey
She runs away from home and doesn’t tell anyone.
Possibly too nail-on-the-head, but try “How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found.”
Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers
Woman runs away from husband and just “disappears”
Not main character but “The Blue Castle” is a great classic, and public domain so FREE
Before She Was Helen by Caroline B Cooney
Kafka on the shore. This novel isn’t entirely about going missing and reinventing but the protagonist of the novel does it and it’s also kinda the main theme of it. It’s also a little weird. Hope u enjoy it.
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Suskïnd’s Perfume
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Sleeping with the Enemy by Nancy Price (made into a movie with Julia Roberts, but the book is a bit different and really good).
The man who lived underground – Richard Wright
Steppenwolf
“The Thief Lord” by Cornelia Fünke
Doppler by Erlend Lou. It is one of my favourite books of all time.
An odd request.
Shadow of the Conqueror by Shad M Brooks has that as a main plotpoint.
The Dead Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello
Lisa Gardner, Before She Disappeared. A woman leaves her life as an alcoholic to become a private detective finding missing people.
I’d give [Where’d you Go, Bernadette](https://amzn.to/3F1xI2g) by Maria Semple a look. Should tick all the boxes.
Maybe Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata? The MC tries desperately to be someone else to please her friends and family
Paper Towns by John Green
Babel by R. F. Kuang