When she was gone

the long version

Just before she’s supposed to start her freshman year at college, Linsey Hart goes missing. Her absence rocks the insular commuter community, whose hypocritical residents publicly wonder how such a thing could happen, while privately disdaining the people and events at the center of Linsey’s life. Her neighbor, Mr. Leonard, muses about Linsey’s disappearance as he plays Rachmaninoff nocturnes while wearing his deceased mother’s evening gown. George, an 11-year-old social misfit, surreptitiously photographs the town’s denizens, searching for clues as to Linsey’s whereabouts. Randy, middle-aged soccer mom Reeva mourns the loss of Linsey as a babysitter for her autistic son, but not to the point where it interferes with her affair with Jordan, a Starbucks barista half her age. Meanwhile, Linsey’s ex-boyfriend Timmy and her mother, Abigail, each grapple with self-recriminations over their roles in driving Linsey away. Gross’ canny twist on the missing-child trope is less a taunting mystery than a caustic indictment of the superficiality of suburban mores and morals.