Unraveling Secrets: Benjamin Hale on the Mysterious Disappearance That Haunts the Ozarks
Instead, I got in touch with Chris Beha, who was then the editor of Harper’s, and pitched a few ideas for articles. One of them was this story. The Harper’s piece was published in their August 2023 issue, and by the time it hit the stands I was already working on expanding it into this book. I had considered writing about it before, but from about 2011-2021 I was primarily occupied with writing what I hoped would be my magnum opus. (During that dark life-nadir between that failure and the beginnings of this book, I felt like I’d basically spent all that time digging a hole in the ground with a blindfold on and earplugs in, at the end of which I’d unearthed no treasure and had only succeeded in digging a very deep and useless hole; but since then I’ve signed a contract to publish that novel with a very good and very small arthouse publisher—it will see the light.)
