The Missing of the Somme is a personal meditation on war and remembrance. With his characteristic wit and insight, Dyer weaves a network of myth and memory, photos and film, poetry and sculptures, graveyards, and ceremonies that illuminate our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.
“A gentle, patient, loving book. It is about mourning and memory, about how the Great War has been represented—and our sense of it shaped and defined—by different artistic media… Its textures are the very rhythms of memory and consciousness.” Guardian
“[A] penetrating meditation upon war and remembrance.” Daily Telegraph
“No contemporary writer blends genres like Geoff Dyer.” Time
First published: UK, Hamish Hamilton, 1994; US, Vintage, August 2011
Current UK edition: Canongate
Current US edition: Vintage