Where'd You Go, Bernadette

A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whipsmart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times). To her Microsoftguru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow privateschool mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15yearold Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle and people in general has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.