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When I was a baby, Lenore, my second cousin on my mom’s side, and also my godmother, babysat me.
In August 1973, she went to a bus station in Connecticut, bought a ticket to somewhere, and did not come back. The reason may have been mental illness; the family later learned that she had been abusive to her children.
Her husband Larry (son of my mom’s uncle) hired private detectives to find Lenore. Despite years of searching, they never did.
Her fate remains a mystery, except, perhaps, to her.
Between my own intensive (and, on many levels, successful) detective work in researching Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman and the topic of my book Vanished: True Stories of the Missing (I mention Lenore in the “About the Author”), my wife and I discussed the possibility of me trying to find out what happened to our cousin.For a fleeting moment, this intrigued me, and I do like a challenge, but it is an effort I will not undertake.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve written about quite a few real people, but most of them (from Ponce de León to Bill Finger) were gone before I’d done so. It wasn’t until 5/1/12 that I had an in-person meeting with someone I had already written about.
Technically we were strangers, but I’ve felt she was my friend since I wrote about her in January 2009; hers is one of the seven stories in Vanished: True Stories of the Missing.
Her name is Hannah Klamecki, and she is 10 years old.
When she got stranded by herself in the woods, she was only five. Writers can get emotionally attached to people they profile, and for me, Hannah was an acute case. The thought of someone so young being so alone in such a potentially dangerous place is paralyzing, perhaps even more so since my own daughter was five when I was writing Vanished.
In writing about Hannah, I felt at once protective of her and guilty. (Because I didn’t reveal any details about Hannah and her family that hadn’t already been published, I have been able to talk myself out of some of the guilt.)
That said, I was still worried that her inclusion in the book could upset Hannah’s family. Of course I’m sure they don’t want to be reminded of their ordeal, especially by someone they don’t know well. Yet they have been the picture of loveliness about this. In fact, it was thanks to Hannah’s parents Mike and Carol (and two proactive Illinois elementary schools, North in Villa Park and Schafer in Lombard) that I had the honor of being a guest author at Hannah’s school.
Before the presentation, Mike and Carol introduced Hannah and me. Upon first seeing her, I wanted to hug her, but held off so as not to overwhelm her. First she lost her grandfather in an accident, then got lost in the woods, then a writer she didn’t know included her story in a book without talking with her first, and now the same writer has come to speak at her school—and bring up the traumatic incident in front of her entire grade (with the advanced permission of both Hannah’s parents and a very poised Hannah herself). Any one of those situations requires deep strength, and Hannah has handled them all with grace.
Her friends were great emotional bodyguards for her. I met one girl who had learned of Hannah from the news before they’d met in school, and I’m told this little firecracker said “I will be
In 11/11, I stumbled upon a trailer a stranger named Jaclyn had made for my book Vanished: True Stories of the Missing.
I Facebooked her to thank her. She wrote back to thank me for thanking her. At the time, I could not tell that Jaclyn was a sixth grader.
Her mom stepped in, and I’m glad she did, for multiple reasons. First, I’m a parent myself, and you get the rest. Second, it brought to light a fortunate coincidence.
It turned out that Jaclyn attended school in the Seattle area, and as it happened, I was scheduled to make my first-ever trip to Seattle in late February.
I asked Jaclyn’s mom if Jaclyn’s school might be interested in an author visit. Indeed they were. The school had just finished building a shiny new library, and I had the honor of helping to christen it.
But best of all, I got to meet Jaclyn and thank her again, in person this time, for taking an interest in my book.
Posted with permission of Jaclyn's mother.
And I got to do it in front of her peers, which her mother cleared me to do in advance. I think this connection had an impact not only on Jaclyn but also on her classmates. They got to see how a book project a young person does can attract the attention of the author of that book, and that, in turn, reinforces the reason we do this in the first place. These days, when we are all inter(net)twined digitally, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that there is a person at the other end of the click.
When I was first asked (in 2008) to write the book that became Vanished: True Stories of the Missing, I said no, feeling it would be too tough to find age-appropriate stories.
Today I discovered that Scholastic has produced a Reading Group Guide for it.
How far we've come.
The guide is strong. Someone spent time getting to know the material and teased out substantial questions and suggestions.
When parents or teachers nervously ask about the content, I say that none of the seven stories contain any gruesome actions, three of the stories are about people who did not remain missing, and two of those stories are about young people who weren't just found—they saved themselves. And I do mean young—second grade and kindergarten.
I did not write the book with a lesson in mind but there's a fine takeaway in that.
I was thrilled to stumble across a trailer for a (nonexistent) movie based on my nonfiction compilation book Vanished: True Stories of the Missing. I don't know the person who made it but sure would like to!
Those glimpses of Indiana Jones and the Little Prince are not false advertising; both do figure into a story in the book. I especially love the text treatment at the end.
Enter to win bookmarks from each of the following titles by leaving a comment and your email below. There will be multiple winners this month (until I run out of bookmarks). The contest closes Wednesday, 9-14.
With a Name Like Love -- Tess Hilmo
New to Binder, Arkansas, Ollie refuses to condemn a down and out family and with her preacher-father stands for truth in this atmospheric To Kill a Mockingbird for the middle-grade set.
My Very Unfairy Tale Life -- Anna Staniszewski
Fixing problems for uncooperative unicorns and being bossed around by a candy-popping gnome has Jenny fed up with her life as an adventurer in this utterly original, funny middle-grade spoof.
Vanished -- Sheela Chari
Previously on "How to Order Vanished"...
My Scholastic Book Club book was for sale only via the Scholastic Book Club (order forms in schools) or by calling Scholastic and paying with a credit card.
I just learned that the book is now also available for purchase on the Scholastic site. (Searching Vanished on the home page brings you to the Teacher Store.)
So what?, I hear you think. Any book can be bought online, I hear you think.
Not so, my friend, though before Vanished, I, too, thought that.
What does this change for organizers who so kindly wish to sell this particular book at events where I am appearing/speaking?
Schools/educators with a Scholastic account: You can now order the book on the Scholastic site and without a credit card.
Non-schools: You can also order the book on the Scholastic site, but first must register, and you must still pay with a credit card.
My book Vanished: True Stories of the Missing relays seven harrowing stories of people who went missing.
Three of those seven are definitely still with us (meaning they were found); one more might be (but probably isn’t) and, if supernatural power exists, a fifth might also be (but almost certainly isn’t).
Aside from a straightforward institutional Rosa Parks biography years ago, this was my first experience writing a book in which a "starring" figure in the story was still alive. It got me thinking about the increased responsibility inherent in that.
Of course, serious writers of nonfiction strive to be as accurate as possible no matter who they are writing about. But when the subject of a book or story is still around, certain mistakes could lead to more than just a tsk-tsk from a librarian. Certain mistakes can be embarrassing or, worse, damaging to the person in question.
What do writers owe the people they write about? I asked myself this as I was researching Vanished, particularly after I encountered some friction from one of the people the book would feature.
I feel a writer must be fair to his subject but not overly protective—because that would not be fair to his readers and to the "record." I don’t know if there is a formal definition of what makes a person a public figure, but I have been told that it is legal to write about anyone. (That doesn’t mean a person unhappy with your portrayal can’t sue you.)
But I am no journalist. I like to think I’d stop at nothing to get a story, and in some ways I can be relentless, but I’m not ruthless. I’ve found ways to tell unpleasant truths (or at least truths that a person wants to keep hidden) in ways that don’t completely expose a person. But there have been a couple of times I have held back on publishing a fact because I feel it’s not my right as a stranger to share it. Some writers would call this cowardly. I get that, but to me it’s more about conscience.
One of the more nerve-racking moments in my career was sending a copy of Vanished to the three people in it who survived their ordeals.
Normally during research for nonfiction, I try to speak with people I am writing about, or, if they’re deceased, people who knew them. But this book had different parameters and a tight deadline, plus the more recent incidents I was including had been well covered in the media. Therefore, two of those three people did not know that they were in a book until I asked for their addresses, and the third was the one mentione
Excerpts (quoted with permission) from a nephew, a friend, a former wife, and a father:
Brian Ruess ("I Leave No Trace: Nature Lover Everett Ruess"):
“It is excellent. Frankly, it is one of the best tellings of the Everett story I have read, and my 12 and 14 year old children enjoyed it as well.”
Marshall Marrotte ("Play That Song Again: Musician Henry Grimes"): “I loved the book and all of the stories were interesting. The Henry Grimes info was spot-on and well written.”
Margaret Hadwin ("The Golden Tree Killer: Woodsman Grant Hadwin"):
“What a great book for kids…”
Mike Klamecki ("Very Harder Than I Thought: Kindergartner Hannah Klamecki"):“Hannah read it first. She said reading her story made her feel 'wiggly' but she thought that it was very accurate. I found her story in your book to be very well researched. As one who has shared this story numerous times in private and in public I liked the way you laid it out. I liked the intro to the characters that went right into the situation. From there on there is a good balance of staying with the developments of the story and going back to talk about my dad and Hannah's relationship. I want to thank you for mentioning my church and the prayer vigil they had which was of huge importance to us. I also want to thank you for mentioning the fire chief and the deputy by name.”
I must publicly thank all of the above for being so generous about this project. Interestingly, I don't mean with respect to research as I first connected with each of them only after the book was finished. But they have all taken the time to read it and respond, and surely for some, revisiting the experience was difficult on some level. Never stop looking for whatever it is you want.
One of my goals in writing Vanished: True Stories of the Missing was to include a diverse range of experiences.
Here are the capsule descriptions of the seven tales in the book:
- 2002: a resourceful second grader kidnapped in her poor Philadelphia neighborhood
- 1925: a British explorer vanished searching for a fabled city in the Brazilian jungle
- 1997: an outdoorsman in British Columbia never arrived for his trial for cutting done a rare golden spruce
- 1969: an accomplished jazz musician went missing after selling his beloved but damaged double bass
- 1934: a 20-year-old free spirit and seasoned hiker lost contact with his family and friends while exploring the Utah desert
- 2007: a 5-year-old survived a river boat accident only to find herself stranded alone in the woods
- 1944: an internationally renowned children's book author and pilot went down over the ocean
This group struck a good balance of ages, genders, races, time periods, settings, and circumstances.
And since it was to be a book for all ages, but marketed primarily to kids ages 8 and up, another of my goals was really more of a responsibility.Any story about a person who vanishes is going to have a certain level of creepiness. But in this case, it could not, of course, progress to the worst-case scenarios of sexual abuse, torture, or murder. And that was more than fine by me.
Here are some (often unpleasant) things I learned or confirmed in trying to choose which stories to include:
- Few women and children who disappear escape unmolested.
- Few children who are missing for more than a couple of days are found alive.
- Stories of people lost in the woods or going down in planes, while all deserving of individual respect, do start to seem the same.
- Stories of people disappearing in the wild seem more common and often more compelling than stories of people disappearing in cities or towns.
- It's hard to find stories of people who were missing for more than a few days and were found alive. Generally speaking, this circumstance would make for the most engaging type of missing persons story. But most fall under one of the other three categories in this construct: people who are missing for 1-3 days and are found alive, people who are missing for 1-3 days and are found dead, people who are missing for longer than 3 days and are eventually found dead.
- The topic allowed for drama more easily than I expected. Yes, "missing people" is a grabber—upon first hearing it. However, when trying to execute it, I anticipated that it would be hard to build suspense because the focus of the story is, well, missing. If that person was never found, I would not be able to set any scenes from his point of view once he vanished. And I anticipated that the grief patterns back home would start to read the same. Yet I realized that it was natural to create tension in the
Vanished: True Stories of the Missing is newly out from Scholastic Book Club. That means it's available exclusively from Scholastic, in one of two ways: by ordering from those wispy catalogs they send home with elementary school students or by calling 800-724-6527, then prompt 3, then prompt 1.
In other words, the book has virtually no ongoing exposure in the physical world or online.
Yet this week I began to get a notable number of blog hits from people who've searched "vanished marc tyler nobleman." Aside from me telling them, the only way they could know the book exists is if they saw it in that book club catalog. I'm sure it's already obvious to you, but it took me a moment to figure out what was going on.
The first catalogs featuring Vanished shipped recently, so these hits must be parents and/or students looking for more info on the book than a single line of copy and a cover thumbnail (actually closer to a pinkienail).
And if not for this blog, their search would turn up, as noted before, virtually nothing.
Before this situation, it hadn't occurred me to that a blog could be useful in this way. This blog is an outlet for me to address various aspects of my work, but most of my other books are easily available to the general public so my posts on them are a supplement to other material out there on them. Conversely, my blog is just about the only source for additional info on Vanished.
Looking for info on this book could've been like looking for some of the people profiled in it—a longshot. But thanks to the almighty yet unassuming power of the blog, it has been given a wider lease on shelf life.
Vanished: True Stories of the Missing appeared in its first Scholastic Book Club catalog.
First page!
Top row!
Okay, listed second, but still:
First page! Top row!
(And for the accuracy-conscious: three of the seven people profiled in the book actually were found.)
My book Vanished: True Stories of the Missing is newly available, and with a slightly different subtitle than shown here:
Published by Scholastic for its book clubs, it is not yet available in stores (physical or online). As of now, the only way to get it is to order it via those book club order forms distributed in schools. However, if you don't have school-aged children, or even if you do, you can simply call Scholastic directly.
If the book does well, it may become available in stores. In the meantime, I’m told that these are the three book clubs in which it will be offered to start:
- The Arrow (grades 4-6), January 2010, which shipped to schools in early December
- The “special offer” history-themed catalog, January 2010
- The TAB (grades 6-9), March 2010
I don't want the book to follow the lead of the people it profiles, so I’m also sharing the direct ordering information here. You can order it this way effective immediately:- Call Scholastic at 800-724-6527, push prompt 3, then prompt 1.
- Using a credit card, order item #514472; price $4.95.
- Wait by your mailbox nibbling on your nails.
Here are the seven true stories in the book and the ways I found family members and other key figures mentioned in each (to send them a copy):Erica Pratt, second grader—“Escape from the Basement”The event occurred in 2002, so Erica is now roughly 14 years old, and still in Philadelphia. She lives with her grandmother, whose name is somewhat common. I couldn’t quickly find a phone number for her grandmother so I searched for other relatives with less common names. I found one—a cousin—on Facebook. He kindly gave me an address to send a copy. Erica’s grandmother has been contacted enough times about this that she chose not to speak with me directly, which I understand. However, through the cousin, the grandmother did thank me for the book. I also sent a copy to a kind woman I quoted; she said Erica would be an inspiration to others. I found her on Facebook.Percy Fawcett, explorer—“The Real Indiana Jones”Percy disappeared in 1925, the story in the book that dates back the furthest. Even though I’m sure there are descendants, I didn’t invest the time to try to find them.Grant Hadwin, woodsman—“The Golden Tree Killer”John Vaillant, author of the compelling The Golden Spruce, kindly told me the city where Grant’s ex-wife was living, last he heard. (She and Grant had divorced about six years before he disappeared.) A search of the Canadian white pages instantly confirmed she’s still there. I left a message, figuring I would not hear back. But
On 12/4/08, I had the honor of appearing at the annual holiday book fair of the Union League Club of New York. It was first described to me as the “mother of cool book fairs.” It's open only to club members and their guests. We’re told the money goes to its scholarship foundation.
It’s the first and still-only book fair for which I’ve had to wear a tie.
NOTE: Photos are from 2009 fair. However, sometimes accuracy is irrelevant.
Last year it was so easy to participate. The Union League asked me, I graciously accepted. Smooth signing.This year proved to be a bit trickier.They invited me on 11/16/09 for the 12/3/09 event. The relatively short notice wasn’t a problem in terms of my schedule. It was a problem because it became even shorter notice…without notice.That was because my affirmative reply went unanswered, as did my two follow-up e-mails. Finally, on 11/30/09, the member who’d invited me checked in with me, and it turns out he had not received any of my replies. The Union League was still willing to have me and I was still eager to be had. But I was the easier part of the formula. (I don’t charge for expedited shipping. I just take Metro-North.)
The harder part was the books.
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Here is the cover for Vanished: True Tales of the Missing, due out in January through the Scholastic Book Club. (It will hopefully also be available in bookstores, but that Scholastic division has not made that decision yet—maybe I'll circulate a petition.)
The book comprises the stories of seven people who disappeared, some of whom were not heard from again; I blogged a bit more about it earlier this spring. Based only on that information, what is your opinion of the cover design?
I'll be curious to see if anyone has the same first reaction I (and my wife, separately) did. Be honest—I am comfortably used to criticism. And I will share my take shortly.
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Very nice story, Marc!