Description

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she s a disgrace; to design mavens, she s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette s intensifying allergy to Seattle–and people in general–has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence–creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter s role in an absurd world.

Shortlisted for this year s Women s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as Orange Prize).