Review: The Book of Lost and Found

The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Why do people lie? What effect does a lie have on the person to whom the lie is told? Would lives be different if the lie were not told or if the truth is eventually revealed? Will the truth make things better or worse? Can a lie ever be justified or selfless?

This book is filled with lies--mothers or step-mothers to daughters, lovers to lovers, the misinformed to searchers. Would the childhood sweethearts carried on their love affair that began as young adults if the secret one kept from the other had been revealed? Would he have become the accomplished and successful artist?

Would the Prima ballerina have worked so hard as a young child to reach the pinnacle of international ballet circles had her step-mother revealed the truth she learned from the mother, whose mother had lied to her at the child's birth? The mother who tried to keep shame and ridicule from her unmarried daughter--or was it to keep it from the family's reputation as much as the girl's? Did the step-mother keep the truth hidden to protect the same child or to keep her for herself--lest the now famous star sought out her mother and left her behind?

And would the misinformation much later in time, during the chaos of WW II , have brought the star-crossed lovers back together had it not been passed on to a distraught returning soldier?

Circle upon circle of lies, half truths, world upheaval, misinformation---all to be sorted through by a young woman who has lost her Mother and whose grand-mother on her death bed finally reveals the truth of the ballerina's birth. The story pivots back and forth between 1929 through the '40's and 1986, the story's present. From London, Paris, Corsica, New York it moves along with the artist and dancer and their families as the heroine hears from the two lovers the story of their lives.

Those questions, unanswerable bounce through my mind even now that the story has ended. A book, at times sad, at others bright and happy --much like life itself.

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