It is almost impossible for any parent to consider a tiny
outstretched hand, a tousled head or beguiling smile, lost in an
instant, swept into a mind-numbing abyss.

Kidnapped, disappeared...

And it becomes even more unbearable if the parent is partly to
blame.

In THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN, her debut novel, Jacquelyn Mitchard
takes readers on this sad, fist-shaking journey.

Beth Cappadora, a photographer in suburban Wisconsin, loses her
three-year-old, Ben, during a high school reunion in Chicago after
leaving him with his brother Vincent, who is seven. Ben simply
vanishes from a lobby crowded with Beth's former classmates.

At this point Mitchard, who is a wonderful storyteller, steps back
and, instead of dousing the reader with sap, hits them with almost
textbook precision.

Beth and her husband, Pat, are neither heroes nor rogues. Their
reactions to this torment are ferocious in their simplicity. Beth
never quite becomes a sympathetic character, more often inviting a
slap than a hug from the reader. She quickly descends into a black
depression, her sanity dangling languidly while Vincent grows into
a troubled youth and Kerry, a baby when Ben is lost, grows up
oblivious. Beth steps back from the edge, as much for the sake of
narrative as herself, but continues to pinwheel, seeking
balance.

Pat is elusive. He loses himself in his work, and moves the family
to Chicago, setting them up for an almost impossible plot twist
that at first glance would seem to settle their anguish but only
leads to more.

Mitchard runs some interesting subplots through the book. Like
Beth's still-simmering relationship with her high school beau. Or
detective Candy Bliss, a lesbian, who yearns to be a mother.

Mitchard is an easy read. Her years as a syndicated columnist make
her dialogue sound familiar and the narrative flow.

But it's hard to like the characters in Mitchard's well-crafted
story, or even feel sorry for  people who are so
self-absorbed. I suspect that's because they take us where no one
wants to go. As Mitchard writes, "If she dared embrace what she
really felt about Ben's loss -- pulled apart the skeins of
stupidity and lack and the truth that everything that matters in
life is decided irrevocably in seconds --- Beth knew something
would happen to her. And it was that, the beyond-grief, the
sealing-up of a mind still expected to produce order and plans,
which she dreaded."

THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN does indeed take her there, and, in the
end, makes that dread ours.