A Map for the Missing

Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: Yitian's father has disappeared from the family's rural village in China. He walked out of their courtyard two mornings ago, with only a plastic bag tied around his wrist, and no one has seen him since. Though Yitian has been estranged from his father for years, he tells his mother he will come home.

When Yitian returns to the village and attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate the country's impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother's evasiveness only deepens the mystery. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen, the only other person who shared Yitian's desire to pursue a life of knowledge. As a teenager, Hanwen was "sent down" from Shanghai to Yitian's village as part of China's rustication campaign. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university in the city together and poured everything into studying for the newly reinstated college entrance exam. But when events spiraled into tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian made it to Beijing, then to America, Hanwen was left behind, resigned to life as a midlevel bureaucrat's wealthy housewife.

Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian's father, all the while grappling with the past--who Yitian's father really was, and what might have been. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and grand cities, A Map for the Missing is an epic, deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, the cost of pursuing one's dreams, and the meaning of home.