Just Another Missing Person

Julia is a police officer, but her job is more than a paycheck—it is a vocation intrinsic to her identity. She blurs the boundaries between her personal and professional life because, for her, there is no difference even as she recognizes that “this is not normal behavior” (16). She brings items from home to her office and brings work home, even involving her daughter in her police work. Art is the only character who pushes back against this behavior, but by the end of the novel, even he realizes that Julia can’t distinguish between work and home.

Julia further blurs this boundary by bringing home to the station, or rather, by including it in her definition of home: “It isn’t a warm Nando’s with her kid, but, funnily enough, it is something almost more potent: to Julia, it is home” (11). This is even more true of her office. It doesn’t just feel like home, it looks like home, decorated with items “bought with her own money […] In other words, it’s a room in her house, transplanted to the office” (17). She pays extra for special blinds to be installed: “The entire right-hand wall is windows and beautiful blinds just like at home” (16).