Patrick Modiano's works often examine the elusiveness of identity and memory. In Missing Person the question is: What if I don't know who I am? What does it mean to know ourselves? This short novel explores these questions through the eyes of a private detective who has amnesia and is trying to discover his past. Clues float by randomly. How is he to order them? He tries to piece them together, but much escapes his grasp either because his memory is faulty or because others have lost or forgotten essential information. It's an idea I worked with in my own novel in which an adult child gradually discovers the truth of her past as long hidden facts and information emerge.