LJ161 Café Littéraire: Missing Person, by Patrick Modiano

Missing Person ("Rue des Boutiques Obscures), by Patrick Modiano, is a quiet, hypnotic mystery about identity, memory, and the scars left by history. The novel follows Guy Roland, a man living in 1960s Paris who suffers from amnesia and hires a private detective—then gradually turns detective himself—to uncover who he once was. His search leads through cafés, old photographs, vanished acquaintances, and the half-erased world of wartime France, where collaboration and persecution left deep traces. Rather than delivering a conventional solution, Modiano constructs a delicate investigation into the uncertainty of self: who we are when the past is lost, and how a life can be shaped by what remains unspoken. Lyrical, restrained, and suffused with melancholy, Missing Person transforms a detective story into a meditation on memory, disappearance, and the fragile act of trying to reclaim a life that may never have been fully one’s own.

Two spaces are reserved for new WICE members. If no new WICE members have registered before 09 January, those two spaces will become available to the general WICE membership.

The book group meets at the organizer's apartment. The directions, door code, telephone number, etc., are sent in the 7-day and 1-day reminder emails, following registration.

Registration for the January meeting opens on Saturday, 20 December 2025.