Vanishings is a stunning collection of autobiographical narratives that propel us into the life and mind of a literary genius.

"Yams were in stories about Africa that I read in Sunday school. Tribes ate them, villagers who still carried spears and stared at missionaries who visited them to explain Jesus. I was out of college before I willingly ate a yam, filling a groove I cut in its skin with butter and brown sugar a minute before I took it from the oven.

A few years later, when I had children of my own who complained about yams, wishing for French fries or mashed potatoes with gravy, the milk carton that sat on the table during dinner always featured the face of a missing child. “Have You Seen Me?” its caption read, and those faces reminded me to be thankful even as my children yammered their petty complaints. As the three of them poked at their half-eaten yams, wasting what was left after a half hour of whining, those milk carton faces kept my anger in check."
—from the book