I'm not going to describe in detail the very personal things that take place…. I'm not writing this book for a bunch of voyeurs…. It's a story about people and how their minds work…. What's fascinating about people is, no one thinks or acts the same way. I am writing about the why of people.

Alan Bennett's Apologia in If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever? … describes M. E. Kerr's purpose in each of her five novels. If, as Irene Hunt suggests, the strain of excellence to be looked for in an outstanding book is the author's ability to clarify "some problem of the human family, some aspect of human behavior, some quality of the human heart or mind or conscience" and the author's "sensitivity to the problem he has perceived, the credibility and grace with which he has recorded what he has perceived," the novels of M. E. Kerr can be judged as among the most outstanding being published today. For in each of them and with varying degrees of "credibility and grace," she attempts to clarify the why of people. Her willingness to confront serious issues coupled with her artistic abilities lifts her novels above the myriad problem-novels that have little to recommend them but their topicality. Not that Kerr's novels fail to reflect the age in which they are written. They do reflect the 1970s, but they also offer the reader much more than a commentary on contemporary problems. They introduce themes that will continue to puzzle mankind in the future just as they have troubled him in the past. (pp. 288-89)

Reading all [Kerr's] novels brings the realization that a common theme appears in each of them, a theme that makes one of the strongest comments on the human condition in literature for young people today. The author is concerned with love, its presence and, more commonly, its absence in the lives of her characters. Virginia Woolf noted in The Common Reader … that writers are disappointing if they are concerned with the body but not with the spirit. Kerr gave early assurance that she was not going to fall into that trap. The why of people can, in most instances, be explained in terms of who or what they love and whether they receive the love they need from others. The spiritual element that Virginia Woolf found wanting in much of modern fiction is not lacking in the novels of M. E. Kerr.

A theme in all her novels becomes the title of her latest—Love Is A Missing Person…. In her first book, Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! …, Dinky fails to get the love and attention she needs from her parents until she makes an extraordinary effort to communicate her feelings….

The theme of love is less well defined in Kerr's third and least successful novel, The Son of Someone Famous…. Adam, called "A. J." by his father, has allowed his identity to be defined by his father's. The book raises the problem all adolescents must solve to achieve maturity. An individual can never become a person in his own right if he is always living up to the expectations of those who love him. (p. 289)

Is That You, Miss Blue? … is a tightly constructed novel that makes a harsh but truthful statement about man's inhumanity to his fellows. The book strips away the veneer of righteousness that adorns many who are, in fact, inwardly honeycombed with hypocrisy. Miss Blue's open display of love for Christ leads to her dismissal from the ostensibly Christian boarding school. The ultimate irony is that in a school dedicated to religious principles and practices, a teacher is dismissed for being too fervent in her convictions. Miss Blue loves too much, and her ways of expressing love are unacceptable to those in authority. By saying that the school is a microcosm of the world, Kerr implies that the injustices perpetrated there are only smaller versions of the injustices in the larger world.

Suzy Slade, the narrator of M. E. Kerr's latest book, feels alienated from her mother and unwanted by her father. For her, love is a missing person. Gwen Spring's former sweetheart has been missing from her life for twenty-five years, yet she continues to love him. Suzy's sister, Chicago, falls in love and literally becomes a missing person. The author, as in all her books, is preoccupied with love, the varied relationships it engenders, and man's inability to give and to receive the love that might be expected in such relationships. For most of her characters, in fact, love is a missing person.

In addition to this common theme, the novels share a pattern of elements and literary devices. Each introduces at least one contemporary issue such as mental illness, drug addiction, anti-Semitism, alcoholism, and racism. Each portrays the development of adolescent sexuality, and several offer insight into adult sexuality as well. Adolescents in all the books begin to view their parents more realistically and with greater understanding. Sharply drawn minor characters abound in all the books; frequent use is made of irony, humor, and quotations from literary sources.

The world Kerr creates is more than an adolescent world, for it includes adult characters who are far different from the unsympathetic ones usually portrayed in much realistic fiction. Moreover, she displays great skill in conveying the complexities of the parent-child relationship. (p. 290)

In Love Is A Missing Person, Suzy Slade … begins to see her father in a different perspective. "I'd never questioned his behavior in my whole life…. Now I just wondered about him, not as Daddy, and not as the man in Who's Who…. But Barry Slade, the individual. Did I even like him anymore?"

Suzy's ponderings point up an obvious strength in the Kerr novels, one that sets them apart from the many contemporary novels nearly devoid of well-developed adult characters. A reader of the majority of books written for young adults learns what motivates the adolescent characters but seldom learns what makes the adult characters act as they do. The adult characters are so fully realized, however, that readers acquire some idea of the pressures on adults in American society. The books offer a series of "possible futures" for their readers, a veritable gallery of "there but for the grace of God" vignettes. Flan Brown speculates, for example, about what changed the popular "Nesty" into the shunned Miss Blue. "Could it happen to anyone? To me? And what would it take to make it happen?" (pp. 291-92)

The only flaw in Kerr's depiction of her characters is that they never elicit from the reader a complete sense of identification. The adolescent narrators, for example, are not as memorable as several of the adult characters, possibly because the young people act as observers of the actions of more colorful characters. This is not to say that the reader cannot identify with Kerr's adolescent characters. Tucker's fears about his social acceptability, Flan's feeling of guilt about Miss Blue, and Suzy Slade's disillusionment with her father and ambiguous feelings about her mother can be shared. But rarely, if ever, does a character totally capture both the interest and emotions of the reader. Her characterizations appeal more to the head than to the heart, but they are, nevertheless, fascinating.

Consider Evelyn Slade in Love Is A Missing Person. To dismiss her as "the alcoholic mother" is to miss one of the most complex characters in recent fiction. She relies on her bottle of I. W. Harper whenever she is under pressure: "That was Mother's courage." In the solarium, decorated with yellow and white wicker furniture, she wears a dress from her yellow and white solarium collection. This is a woman who refuses to join an exclusive club because it does not admit Jews and who says that "bravery isn't tested during big moments but in little, everyday ones, in the way one faces people and faces up to problems with them." In the furor over the stolen painting, she tells Suzy to go to her job at the library. "'In a crisis … you do the same as you do every day, as far as possible. That's what holds things together. Routine is fiber, and in a crisis, fiber binds.'" Yet this wise woman later makes a fool of herself trying to get back a husband she doesn't really want; she is an adult who combines a high degree of perceptiveness with a goodly share of human foibles.

Contrast the elegant Evelyn Slade with Suzy's friend, Gwen Spring, a throwback to the 1940s in her saddle shoes and white socks, a memorial to unrequited love. When Susie says she wishes she could write something as beautiful as "Wild Nights," Miss Spring tells her to "'[w]ish instead that you could feel anything so beautiful as that poem.'" Another time she tells Suzy that life isn't answers, but questions. She admits that she has wasted herself in a "'futile fantasy. I grew wrinkles from dreaming. Wrinkles should come from living, not imagining that you are.'"

Evelyn Slade and Gwen Spring are examples of a literary device evident in all of M. E. Kerr's novels, a device used in other books, such as Ruth Sawyer's Roller Skates … and Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy…. [These characters] present a range of views on life and the human dilemma through their own statements or quotations from others…. Quotations from a variety of sources ranging from the Bible, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky to Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, and the Beatles are integrated into Kerr's books in a number of ways—as part of an English class activity, in a letter, or in notes on bulletin boards. No other contemporary writer exposes young readers to so much material for reflection.

Another discernible pattern is formed by the balancing of two opposing sets of values—P. John's conservative views offset by the liberal views of his father and the Hockers, the views on atheism of Cardmaker and Flan's father countered by Flan's own ponderings, the two views of life represented by Brenda Belle's mother and her aunt, the contrasting life styles of Tucker's father and his Uncle Jingle. M. E. Kerr offers her readers a choice. One takes from these books a genuine sense of the ambiguity of life and the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of pinning down definite answers. "'Life isn't answers…. It's questions.'" Nor is there an answer that fits all people. "'The right way is what you grow to learn is right for you.'" Young people, in reading these novels, have the opportunity to think about their responsibility for defining the old people they will become. Always there is the sense, however, that we cannot control our lives entirely—that, as Alan's mother cautioned, our lives are influenced by other people and by circumstances over which we have little or no control. Can fiction become more realistic than that? (pp. 292-94)

Matthew Arnold's definition of literature as a "'criticism of life'" points up the seriousness of the literary endeavor. For Arnold it was not enough that a work of literature provide diversion. Nor, seemingly, is it enough for Irene Hunt with her criterion that an outstanding book must provide a perceptive commentary on the human condition. Judged by these standards, the novels of M. E. Kerr stand out from the general run of contemporary books. With style, wit, and compassion she describes adolescents coming to the realization that those they love will, more often than not, fail to live up to their expectations. Her concern with themes that have universal significance, her ability to create a variety of characters, her sensitivity to the sufferings of others, her humor and, finally, her use of irony all contribute to the power of her books. She has a clever style that never offends by being too clever. Moreover, she is subtle; where others are heavy-handed, she is light, sharp, and deft—using a rapier but never a sledge hammer.

Having published five books in four years, Kerr demonstrates the capability for sustained effort that is necessary to achieve a lasting place in literature. Time alone will determine the longevity of these novels, but it is worth noting that the last two are the best of the five. Short of writing a masterpiece, an author can establish a claim to fame by producing a number of superior books. M. E. Kerr is well on her way to that goal. (p. 295)