'That's what happens when you listen to the stories and they start to tell themselves all over again ... the more you hear, the more questions there are, answers unpeeling like the layers of an onion.'

Memoir, detective work and political history come together in this vivid and moving family biography told through the stories passed down by its undaunted women.

Heard on a toboggan in the Austrian mountains, in the back seat of an overloaded Mini toiling through Europe, on a coal barge in Paris ... here are tales that take us from Hungary, Germany and Italy to France, England and Argentina, from the young actress in fin de siecle Vienna to the 16-year-old schoolboy who disappeared for over 50 years. My Disappearing Uncle is a journey of discovery that explores the complicated dance between the present and the past.