The Nowhere Boy by Anne Cleary

Some people don’t deserve to be parents… do they? Anne Cleary’s The Nowhere Boy is a gripping New Zealand debut that takes every parent’s worst fear, a child vanishing in broad daylight, and turns it into a tense character-driven mystery.

Three-year-old Oliver, known as Apple Man, disappears from a remote coastal car park while his young father, Scott, carries fishing gear down to the beach. One moment he is there; the next, he is gone. For Apple Man’s mother, Fae, the news is devastating. Already angry with Scott and carrying guilt herself, she’s thrown back into his life as Police search the wild coastline and nearby pine forest. As the hours pass, fear turns into panic, and the awful question becomes impossible to ignore: what if Apple Man is never found? Fae is one of the novel’s strongest characters. She’s prickly, fiercely independent and often difficult. Despite her resentment towards Scott, Apple Man’s disappearance forces them into a closeness neither is prepared for. Their youth and immaturity never diminish their love for their child; if anything, Anne shows how love can exist alongside poor choices, fear and emotional mess.

What makes this novel so compelling is how Anne doesn’t tell a simple story of victim and villain. Nearby, a grieving woman, Tessa, (who has lost three babies), finds a small boy and convinces herself she has been given a second chance. She doesn’t see a crime, but an abandoned boy who needs rescuing. Her actions are indefensible, but Anne develops her character with enough complexity that you can feel the grief, denial and longing driving her. As the investigation intensifies, her fragile fantasy of motherhood begins to unravel.

I particularly enjoyed the local feel of the novel. The New Zealand coastline, the bush, the small-community atmosphere and the sense of place give the story an added immediacy. There is something especially unsettling about a nightmare unfolding in a landscape that feels recognisable and close to home.

“Although the story covers a serious topic, I found Tessa, Fae, Scott, and Ray a lot of fun to write about. They would often surprise me by heading down a different path than the one I had intended for them,” says Anne.“ I think there are many facets of humanity in their separate stories: guilt, despair, judgment, fear, longing, anger, love.”

“Some of our choices result in more catastrophic consequences than others. When we need it most, it’s everything to discover forgiveness and understanding, and someone in our corner,” she says.

This humanity is exactly what gives The Nowhere Boy its force. The characters are flawed, contradictory and sometimes frustrating, but that’s also what makes them feel so real.

Fast-paced and tense, The Nowhere Boy asks difficult questions about parenting, grief, judgement and forgiveness. It begins with one devastating moment, but grows into a powerful story about longing and loss and the choices people make when they are desperate for love.

The Nowhere Boy is a compelling read and an ideal book club choice. View the reading notes here. Anne Cleary is from West Auckland and now lives in Tauranga. The Nowhere Boy is her debut novel and the winner of the Allen & Unwin Aotearoa NZ Fiction Prize 2025. The inaugural winner was Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro (2023). The second winner was The Call by Gavin Strawhan.

Reviewer: Andrea Molloy

Allen & Unwin