The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard

While this book is not high prose, it is a riveting story about a mother, Beth, whose three year old son, Ben, is kidnapped from the lobby of a hotel when she takes her family to her high school reunion. Beth's plunge into severe depression and fixation on the loss of her son create disintegrating relationships with her family but most especially Vincent, her older son, and Pat, her restaurant manager husband. This books has a surprise twist, which seems a little implausible when the lost boy is found nine years living nearby with a "step dad".  The  mother  in me was affected at  a gut level...I don't know how I would ever cope with such a loss, but I might have taken on some of the same behaviors of guilt and resentment toward those I lived with that Beth does. It reminded me of The Good Mother by Sue Miller. Life can be perfect one day with your young child and the next day a turn of events makes your life hell and you cannot think of anything else but the loss of your child.