When Benjamin Grant's son disappeared a year ago, he threw himself into the search, and his obsession left him without a home, wife, or job. Now, he's managed to find work at the United States Postal Service's Mail Recovery Center, which he hopes will prove an invaluable tool in his investigation. With the help of his coworker, Sylvia-a kleptomaniac artist-Ben learns the ins and outs of a warehouse full of lost mail, and explores every lead in his son's case. But when it all points towards the monstrous Leonard Moscovich, Ben fears the worst.
For each purchase of Undeliverable, a $1 donation is made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help fund the efforts to bring missing kids home.
What people are saying about Undeliverable
Engaging, inventive and full of feeling, Demarest's debut engagingly addresses what we lose when we lose someone we love. - Kirkus Review
Undeliverable delivers a range of pleasures to its readers: a unique and fascinating setting, an urgent mystery, a cast of oddball characters, sharp and witty dialogue. But what makes it compelling above all else is its heartfelt exploration of one man's grief and determination in the face of his son's disappearance. We yearn for Ben to find his missing boy, but even more, we want him to find a path to fulfillment in a world full of trouble. In Rebecca Demarest's hands, his journey is tense, thrilling, and deeply satisfying.
- Scott Nadelson, author of Saving Stanley and The Cantor's Daughter
Herman Melville knew that the dead letter office of the U.S. Postal Service was a potent metaphor for modern life. His short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," harnessed the great sighs of humanity found there. Rebecca Demarest's engaging tale of what has become the "Mail Recovery Center" picks up the beautiful sadness and loss of a place that contains letters to "Santa, Jesus, God, Satan, The Perfect Man, [and] The Easter Bunny..." Her tale is framed engagingly by the "Property Office Manual" instructions by the long gone Gertrude Biun, a ghost of bureaucracies past. Rebecca Demarest knows how tales work. She gives her readers spirited language, dead-on humor and a trip to the inner workings of despair and strangeness. Serious readers will love this book.
- Michael Strelow, author of The Greening of Ben Brown, and Henry: A Novel of Beer and Love in the West
A modern noir with a social conscience, Demarest's novel combines the page-turning qualities of the "man on a mission" thriller with the heart wrenching realities of child abduction. Publishers, and fans, of cinematic fiction with a something extra, take notice.
- William Orem, playwright and author of Killer of Crying Dear
