Missing Sam
Thrity Umrigar
Algonquin Books, 2026, 320 pages
$29.00

Reviewed by Kara L. Zajac

Missing Sam is a deeply moving story about the multifaceted depths of loss and the rebuilding of strength in relationships during recovery. In this gripping, suspenseful novel, Umrigar sheds light on moving past the trivial nuances that stagnate our lives, like going to bed angry, navigating the gender bias of traditional families, or trying to survive the bitter, spiteful criticism of social media as a queer, brown, Muslim in a supposedly liberal, open-minded suburb in Ohio.

After a fight the night before, Sam goes on a morning run all alone, leaving her wife, Ali, and her phone at home. When Sam doesn’t return home after several hours, Ali is unsure if Sam is trying to get even or if something terrible has happened. Thinking she must wait 48 hours before reporting her wife missing, Ali makes a few mistakes before going to the police, who ask why she waited so long. I can understand why she would want to delete the anger-fueled texts, those hurtful words spat back and forth that led to Sam sleeping in the guest bedroom the night before she disappeared. Fighting with your spouse could definitely appear incriminating in a missing persons case. Soon after, a grad student inappropriately obsessed with Sam oversteps boundaries with social media posts, and newspaper articles imply Ali could be doing more to aid the safe return of her wife, turning the local opinion against her. The media’s scrutiny is bringing the town’s Islamophobia, as well as their homophobia, bubbling to the surface as they criticize Ali’s every move and her intentions as an Indian-Muslim in the U.S., even canceling pending contracts with her interior design firm. Suddenly, Ali feels like a suspect and is caught defending herself when she should be trying to locate her wife.

In this untypical, don’t-know-what-you-have-until-it’s-gone story, we experience the power of forgiveness as Ali reaches out to both of their estranged families.

We will fight, we will make mistakes, we will say angry things to one another. But then as mysteriously as a flower blooming from a seed, as impossibly miraculous as an earth covered with flowers, we will find our way back to one another, we will recognize that we are both stranded in our own histories, that the only antidote for our difficult past is to double down on love, and we will forgive (303)

Using the strength of family bonds to get through the most difficult of times and learning that the unrelenting capacity to love doesn’t always mean forgetting, but understanding each other’s differences and choosing to love anyway, we see the character’s humanness grow with the story. “I’ve wasted all these years trying to change Ali, when all along, the only person I could’ve changed lived within me” (304). With relatable, yet flawed characters, the reader has no choice but to root for them. Umrigar’s lyrical, yet fast-paced writing will leave you wanting more, staying up later than your bedtime because you just can’t put it down. Missing Sam is a great, thought-provoking, heart-string-tugging read perfect for book clubs.

Kara Zajac is the author of The Significance of Curly Hair: A Loving Memoir of Life and Loss, which won the 2025 IPPY Silver Medal for Inspirational Nonfiction and was chosen for “The Best Books We Read in 2024” by the Independent Book Review. Its follow-up, The Special Recipe for Making Babies, was a finalist in 2022’s Charlotte Lit/ Lit South Awards for Nonfiction. Kara’s work has been published in Bay Area Reporter, Lesbian.com, Voraka Magazine, Story Circle Anthology, and Imperfect Life Magazine. She can be found at www.KaraZajac.com