The Deep End of the Ocean [Paperback]

Masterful...A big story about human connection and emotional survival -Los Angeles Times 

The first book ever chosen by Oprah's Book Club

Few first novels receive the kind of attention and acclaim showered on this powerful story—a nationwide bestseller, a critical success, and the first title chosen for Oprah's Book Club. Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving,The Deep End of the Oceanimagines every mother's worst nightmare—the disappearance of a child—as it explores a family's struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch readers' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one.Jacquelyn Mitchardis the author of the bestselling novelThe Deep End of the Oceanand of two nonfiction books, includingMother Less Child: The Love Story of a Family. She has been featured on NBC'sToday ShowandCBS This Morning, and has been profiled in such national publications asPeopleandNewsweek. A contributing editor toLadies' Home Journal, Mitchard and her five children live in Madison, Wisconsin.

INTRODUCTION

The Deep End of the Oceanis a story about every parent's worst nightmare: the loss of a child. It is a story that is all too familiar to many of us, made frighteningly routine by the young faces emblazoned on milk cartons or steeped in pathos by Hollywood scriptwriters. In Jacquelyn Mitchard's deft hands, however, the story of the Cappadora family is neither routine nor cliched. It is chillingly and beautifully real.

Photographer Beth Cappadora is far from the ideal mother and wife. She is harried, impatient, disorganized, and ambivalent about her husband and her kids—faults that come back to haunt her after her middle child disappears in a crowded hotel llÃ%