The Sunday Times bestseller - Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, uncovers the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child
The Sunday Times bestseller - Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, uncovers the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a childTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD**'A modern masterpiece' GuardianUncovering the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child- Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story.Autumn 1929 - a young girl is kidnapped from a beach. Five agonising days go by before she is discovered safe and well in a nearby village. The child remembers nothing of these events and at home, nobody ever speaks of them again.Decades later, Laura Cumming delves into the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance. Examining everything from old family photos to letters, tickets and recipes, she uncovers a series of secrets and lies perpetuated not just by her family but by the whole community and in doing so unlocks a mystery almost a century old.'A moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life' Sunday TimesShortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionShortlisted for the Rathbones Folio PrizeLonglisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize
Short-listed for Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2019 (UK) Short-listed for The Folio Prize 2020 (UK)
“Memoir of the Year How we see -- and who see and what secrets they choose to share -- is at the heart of this exquisitely composed memoir... A peerless detective story that keeps you guessing to the end”
Memoir of the Year How we see -- and who see and what secrets they choose to share -- is at the heart of this exquisitely composed memoir... A peerless detective story that keeps you guessing to the end The Sunday Times
On Chapel Sands is much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece -- John Carey Sunday Times
Cumming skilfully withholds key twists in the tale, revealing them at just the right moment. There are surprises, but no shocks. Her prose is too elegant for such gaudiness – composed and restrained but empathetic -- Leaf Arbuthnot The Times
Brilliant... This book is a love letter to her [Cumming's] mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine though. It's also an intimate portrait of a village community, with its storybook characters (butcher, baker, dairyman, bell-ringer, gravedigger) and their wonderful old-fashioned names -- Blake Morrison Guardian
By turns beautiful, wistful, and ominous… the reasons behind the kidnap, and the repurcussions, are every bit as complex as any served up by fiction, and, oddly enough, the dénouement -- or succession of dénouements -- is just as satisfying, perhaps more so... a meditation on the way some people disappear, and time erases memory... so familiar as to be universal, and will probably ring bells with all but the sunniest reader (**** Five Stars) -- Craig Brown Mail on Sunday
A deeply felt, forensic yet ultimately empathetic examination of human motivation and its attendant sorrows, which is as much a social history of the early 20th century as it is the story of one family and its secrets… [Cumming's] intermeshing of art, time and memory is superlative… The repercussions are interrogated by Cumming with a hungry precision up to her last, revelatory pages -- Catherine Taylor Daily Telegraph
On Chapel Sands is a mystery solved through empathy and interpretation. It feels as if this is the book Cumming has been working towards, a deeply personal story but one that also draws on practised skills as a critic and a writer. It is perfectly balanced between the requirements of its narrative and the expression of its author's passions. It is a moving tribute from a daughter to her parents and grandparents. It is beautifully written -- Andy Miller Spectator
Unputdownable… this memoir-cum-detective story becomes a remarkable search for truth -- Charlotte Cox Sunday Telegraph
A fascinating, beautifully written feat of detective work, evoking bygone Britain during an era when so much was left unsaid -- Charlotte Heathcote Daily Mail, Book of the Week
A poetic blend of memoir and detective story… Cumming breathes new life into the form, with her art critic’s analysis of the family photographs which appear on many of the pages -- Marcus Field Evening Standard *
Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of the Observer since 1999. Her book, The Vanishing Man- In Pursuit of Velazquez, was Book of the Week on Radio 4, Wall Street Journal Book of the Year and a New York Times bestseller. It won the 2017 James Tait Black Biography Prize and was published to critical acclaim ('A riveting detective story- readers will be spellbound' Colm T ibin). Her first book, A Face to the World- On Self-Portraits, was described by Nick Hornby as 'Brilliant, fizzing with ideas not just about art but human nature' and by Julian Barnes as 'that rare item- an art book where the text is so enthralling that the pictures almost seem like an interruption'.
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