Missing Persons: A Life of Unexpected Influences

If indeed this work can actually be categorized as a memoir, it is certainly ahead of its time. Piasecki writes autobiographical snippets in third person, as if writing about someone else. He describes three stages of his life, the last stage being pure speculation about the end of his life, but it’s written in past tense as if it had already occurred. Although the idea yields itself to a certain “avant-garde” artistry, Piasecki ends up amalgamating the snippets of raw genius prose with the bland musings of middle-age craziness.llHis disjointed chronology of events features his wife and family. Piasecki’s wife gets all the best lines in the book. Her humor and personality quickly steal the show from the main character, with lines like, “You have to fall in love with the process of becoming greater.” Perhaps Piasecki wants us to know that the source of his inspiration lies with the woman he married—a noble goal. Piasecki’s daughter occupies the second highest rung on the tribute ladder, with an impersonal notion of commercial trade coming in a distant third.llWith more refinement and a sharper edge to his prose, Piasecki might have established a brand-new genre.