Adventures Gone Awry

Vanished!: A Review

I’m fond of a good mystery, so I was excited to pick up Vanished! by Evan Balkan, and dive into the 8 stories of adventurers gone missing. Each chapter profiles the adventurers, the known details of their last adventure, then reported sightings, clues, and theories as to what happened. (I am very ready for mysteries, shady characters, and decades-old gossip as I read this during QuaranTimes).

It took me a little while to get into this book, but then the author started covering Percy Fawcett’s “famous British reserve and penchant for understatement characteristic of all famous British explorers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,” and then I was in love. I’m a sucker for jungle travels and a stiff upper lip. Note: I do not possess one myself.

Then, THEN! Mr. Balkan quotes lines from “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in the chapter about famous aviators Amelia Earhart and Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I love Le Petit Prince, but in this chapter we filled in gaps in my knowledge (Amelia was premed! And a social worker! St-Exupery was called a traitor by Charles de Gaulle!).

Some of the lesser-known explorers are filled with haunted wanderlust and depression, like Everett Ruess, a talented young man who bopped around the West, meeting artists including Dorothea Lange, before meeting a mysterious end in Utah.

Verdict: Absolutely grab a copy, but be prepared for armchair wanderlust. And telling your mom before you leave.