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1-Page Summary of Elizabeth Is Missing

Overall Summary

Elizabeth Is Missing is a novel by Emma Healey, published in 2014. It’s about an old woman named Maud who suffers from dementia and thinks that her best friend Elizabeth has disappeared. She becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her sister Sukey, who also vanished decades earlier, because she wants to remember the past before it’s too late.

Maud’s daughter, Helen, and a caregiver, Carla, care for Maud. They warn her to stay inside the house and not go out because she is prone to accidents. She should stop buying tinned peaches and turn off the stove when cooking. However, Maud either ignores or forgets each of these rules.

Maud is determined to find out what happened to her friend Elizabeth. She visits the police station multiple times, places an ad in the local paper, and repeatedly goes to Elizabeth’s house looking for clues. Because Maud can’t retain information well, she keeps scraps of paper in her pockets to track clues; this reflects her mental state.

Although Maud’s memory is not perfect, she does remember the details of her sister Sukey’s disappearance. At the time, Maud was young and had a lodger named Douglas who lost his home to a bombing during World War II. She also suspected that Frank Gerrard and Douglas might have been involved in Sukey’s disappearance.

Young Maud collects clues about Sukey’s disappearance. She clips articles out of the local paper about missing women and murder victims, asks Frank if he had anything to do with Sukey’s death, and puzzles over the ravings of a crazy woman who whispers to her about glass smashing, birds flying, soil, and summer squash.

In the last chapter of the novel, we’re back in present-day and Maud leads Helen to Sukey’s body. Frank is her suspect because he buried her there. Helen calls the police who promise they’ll investigate. Meanwhile, Maud also finds out that Elizabeth was recovering from a stroke at a rehabilitation home and visits her but forgets about it soon after.

At the end of the book, Maud goes to Elizabeth’s funeral but doesn’t remember who she is or what’s happening.

Prologue

A woman named Maud is confused and upset. She has just found a broken compact in the snow, and she feels as though she has lost something important. Her friend Elizabeth calls to her from inside the house, asking her to come back in before it gets dark.

Chapter 1

Carla tells Maud that someone mugged an old lady and bashed half her face in. Carla often talks about the victimization of older people, and Maud finds it upsetting. When Carla tells Maud to stop buying so much food, Maud remembers Helen telling her the same thing. She protests that she doesn’t have many treats left now that her husband is gone; she feels free to eat as many sweets as she likes now.

Maud is told by Carla to wait until noon to eat lunch. Once Carla leaves, Maud eats the sandwich. When Maud turns on the TV, she can’t follow what’s happening in the shows because her attention span isn’t long enough.

While waiting for Helen, Maud thinks about her friend Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s miserly son. Despite the note telling her not to leave the house, she decides to go down to the grocery store. She gets lost along the way and remembers when bombing changed their neighborhood, flattening houses and leaving rubble behind. Although she’s able to make out words on a shopping list, she can’t remember what items look like. Uncomfortably aware that someone is watching her, Maud grabs things closest to her until a clerk tells her that she bought those yesterday. When he asks if she wants peach slices again today as well, Maud firmly says “yes”. After returning home with more tinned peaches again today, Helen stops by and scolds her for buying too much food again.