- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Canada (AHC) (Aug 5 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0143013718
- ISBN-13: 978-0143013716
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.7 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #336,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Amazon.ca
Between 1978 and 2001, 63 women disappeared from Vancouver's Lower Eastside. "How could this have happened?" is a question that will haunt the families of the missing for the rest of their lives. While a lumbering, largely unconcerned police department is partly to blame, Maggie de Vries thinks this is too simple an answer. Most if not all the women in question were prostitutes and/or drug addicts, and so it was relatively easy for law enforcement officials and politicians to ignore the mysterious disappearances of people considered by society to be second-class citizens. Missing Sarah is de Vries's attempt to remind us that these women had dreams and hopes, and families who loved them. In clear, honest (and, at times, honestly naive) prose, the author recalls her adopted sister Sarah's early, outwardly happy middle-class childhood, and the powerlessness the family felt as the young sibling became more and more entrenched in a downtown milieu of drugs and sex. By her teens Sarah was running away from home at every opportunity, and eventually the family saw her only a few times a year, usually during the holidays. And then they stop hearing from her at all.
Using Sarah's journal entries and the recollections of some of her co-workers in the sex trade, as well as family memories, de Vries pieces together what she can of her sister's life on the streets and finds moments of humour and humanity: "My toes get so cold they actually make me cry when they start warming up again," Sarah writes in her journal. "My hands aren't much better. The tips of my fingers, yikes: ouchie, ouchie, ouchie." Why did Sarah let herself get lost on the cold streets of the city rather than retreating to the bosom of her family? How could the police be aware of over five dozen missing women and still not admit there might be a serial predator at work? These are questions that, ultimately, will never really be answered to anyone's satisfaction. In Missing Sarah, Maggie de Vries has written a warm, sometimes angry but most often evenhanded tribute to her sister that does much to commemorate the lives of all the women whose remains may lie somewhere on the now-infamous Port Coquitlam pig farm. De Vries herself comes to a deeper understanding of the world, and rather than shrink back she faces the darkness with strength and clarity. The rest of us should feel lucky Missing Sarah is as close as we'll come to experiencing the horror that she and the rest of the families are enduring still. --Shawn Conner
Book Description
On April 14, 1998, Sarah de Vries disappeared from the corner of Princess and Hastings in Vancouver. She became one of the many women who had vanished from the Downtown Eastside, women—most of them prostitutes or drug addicts—whose fate was all but ignored by the authorities. Years went by, women continued to disappear, and there were no answers for their families.
For the women who disappeared did have families. They were loved, they had friends, they had lives that began long before their terrible end. And Maggie de Vries's sister Sarah was one of them.
Although Sarah and Maggie shared a comfortable, middle-class upbringing, Sarah, adopted as an infant, was black, while the rest of her family was white; and so she alone was the victim of racist taunts and prejudice. As Sarah reached adolescence, her troubles grew. She ran away from home. She became addicted to drugs. She ended up on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. But always she was loved.
Missing Sarah, which incorporates excerpts from Sarah's journals, is Maggie de Vries's story of her search for her sister. From those journals, and from the recollections of people who knew Sarah during her 14 years downtown, emerges a portrait of a bright, funny and sensitive woman who found herself trapped in a downward spiral of self-loathing, prostitution, drugs and violence.
From the moment Sarah disappeared, her sister never stopped looking for her. Even after Sarah's DNA was discovered at Robert Pickton's farm, and hope was replaced by grim certainty, Maggie continued her search. This time she was looking for answers. Why did so many women have to disappear before the authorities took notice? Was there any way Sarah could have been saved from her life on the streets? And what can we do to help those women who are still trapped, by chance or circumstance, in the same bleak world that Sarah de Vries once inhabited?
Inside This Book
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Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
When Love Is Not Enough,
By Sigrid Macdonald (Ottawa) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Missing Sarah (Paperback)
In Missing Sarah, Maggie de Vries writes a provocative and heartbreaking story about her sister, Sarah, who was one of 69 women who went missing from the Eastside of Vancouver in the 1990s. Shockingly, Sarah's DNA was discovered on Robert Pickton's farm, yet that evidence was not sufficient for the police to charge him with her murder.A professional writer, Maggie goes back in time to give us a detailed portrait of Sarah's earlier years. A child of mixed racial descent, Sarah was adopted into a Caucasian family; she was taunted at school and mocked for her ethnicity. Although the family adored Sarah and vice versa, this devotion was not enough to surpass the pain from the racist insults that Sarah received. She became a troubled teenager, feeling that she did not belong anywhere. Sarah began to run away, and eventually felt more comfortable in group homes and in her own low-rent apartment than she did with her family. Maggie traces Sarah's journey into drugs and prostitution. She also analyzes different factors that have decreased the safety of sex trade work. According to Maggie, between 1960 and 1974, only one prostitute was the victim of a violent death in British Columbia. From 1975 to 1980, the number increased to a total of three women. It started rising in the 90s, resulting in 24 dead sex trade workers in B.C. before the maniacal actions of Robert Pickton. This is an important book. Not only do we get to know Sarah de Vries as a person, rather than a faceless, drug addicted prostitute, but we also get a sense of how terribly wrong it is for our hypocritical society to push sex trade workers into the deepest and darkest corners of the city where they will inevitably be easy prey for perverts and malevolent men. Policymakers as well as the general public should take heed. Sex trade workers, who are often only teenagers, need our protection. Missing Sarah makes a strong argument for the decriminalization of drugs since many prostitutes cannot leave the job because they need to work to feed their habit. It also advocates the legalization of the sex trade. I support both of these positions. All acts between consenting adults should be legal, especially when doing so gives sex trade workers a safe physical location. That way they don't have to solicit on corners and get into cars with strangers who may beat, rob, rape or kill them.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Moving Account of One Sister's Life on the Streets,
By
Ce commentaire est de: Missing Sarah (Paperback)
I gave this book 5 stars, not because it is a literary masterpiece, but because it stands out in its genre (that is, either a family memoir or true crime story). The author, a teacher of literature at the University of British Columbia, writes with confidence and clarity.I found the book unusually moving. It's too easy to say that hookers and drug addicts shouldn't be surprised when they meet danger on the streets. De Vries shows us that her sister, one of these supposed "throw away women", had feelings and interests. This book brought out feelings of fear, sorrow, and anger. It's rare that any one book can capture all those emotions in me. Well done, Maggie de Vries.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Missing Sarah review,
By A Customer
Ce commentaire est de: Missing Sarah (Paperback)
I purchased this book because I knew Sarah briefly, and know Maggie, somewhat, via internet.I believe Maggie beautifully wrote what she remembers and I think this book might help others. Especially non native people, despite their good intentions, of adopting native kids. Hopefully too, it will help other women or girls who are considering a career of street prostitution. Its simply not safe to be out there today. I know. I have been there myself. In her book, Maggie was able to put a human face on women, who like Sarah, chose a very dangerous lifestyle. It would have been helpful if we heard more about Sarah's children. What is being done differently for them, as they are being raised by the same loving, but Caucasian grandmother? Are they being exposed to native culture, visiting Elders, attending Pow Wows and Traditional Ceremonies?
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