The Missing

It's New Orleans, shortly after WWI. Sam Simoneaux returns from the war, not seeing any action but experiencing war's terrible aftermath. He wants nothing more than to return to peace and a normal life. He takes a job as a floor walker at a local department store. However a little girl is abducted from the store while he is on duty and he loses his job. He's anguished by the parent's pain. He had lost a child himself due to sickenss. He accepts a job, joining the missing girl's parents on a steamboat providing entertainment along the Mississippi waters. He feels that the person who took the little girl may have seen her when the boat was stopped on the trip to New Orleans. Now that the boat is heading upriver, he wants to search in the towns where the boat stops. As his search continues, we experience the rich description of the life along the river banks and are able to visualize the hard working men and women as they are drawn to the boat by the sounds of the calliope. Sam is a well drawn character. His search for the little girl and desire to return to his family reminds me of "Cold Mountain" where Inman is also returning from a war, the Civil War and on an odyssey through the south to be reunited with his love. The Mississippi is also a charcter as the reader experiences the life of the people along the river banks. We see the lawlessness and the excitement that the musical steamboat brings to the farmers, saw millers, hillbillies and other hard working people along the river's edge. The plot is well done and tells of a time and place in history, rich with folklore and life of the past. It provides a vivid picture of the music, prejudice and difficulties of the time.