Book Review of If You Were There by Francisco Garcia

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This review is based on a free review copy from the publisher via NetGalley.co.uk

 

This book tells the story of a personal journey whilst exploring the viewpoints and experiences of those the author meets along the way. This includes those left behind by someone who went missing, just as the author’s father left him behind; professionals and volunteers dealing with the missing from various different directions and even one person who intentionally went missing and was found “safe and well”. There are important issues with even that outcome, because the mentality of going intentionally missing isn’t always far from that of suicide and this is why there’s a need for the police and other agencies to tread more carefully than most people realise. People going missing through an accident, such as falling in a canal and not being found for some time is dealt with and at least this kind of disappearance is amenable to energy being put into safety measures to prevent accidents near deep water in cities. There is no other side of the coin with stopping someone from drowning, as there is with finding and bringing back someone whose circumstances drove them to flee. Cases of people who have gone missing almost certainly as a result of a criminal act are mentioned, but the author does not get to grips with this and it’s hard to see how he could, because victims of kidnap and murder cannot speak and the perpetrators will very probably utter only lies.

The decision the author finally takes when he travels to his father’s home city in Spain would be surprising for anyone who hasn’t read the book through to that point, and the book appears to have been mostly written as the author went along with his search so readers see the decision as it happens. But the thoroughness of this book in the way it identifies and deals with as many relevant issues as it can, allows the reader to fully understand the decision when it comes. It’s a useful book for people to read, because none of us will have any advance warning if someone we know chooses to go missing. There are avoidable mistakes which tend to be made in such situations and it’s no good trying to learn how to react while it’s all happening. More than a hundred thousand people go missing in Britain every year and everyone has some responsibility to develop an understanding of the issues.

I haven’t encountered a lot of other non-fiction on this particular theme, but Abbie Greaves’ novel “The Ends of the Earth” has a similar conclusion.

If You Were There by Francisco Garcia was published by Mudlark on the 13^th of May 2021