I Found You

I Found You by Lisa Jewell was originally published in 2016. Jewell is a New York Times bestselling British author, whose first novel appeared in 1999. Currently, three film adaptations of her novels None of This is True, Then She Was Gone, and 31 Dream Street are in development. I Found You is a mystery about a man who has lost his memory. He is found and aided by Alice, a single mother who works as an artist. Jewell uses the man’s process of healing from his fugue state to explore Memory as the Foundation of Identity, The Relationship Between Memory and Love, and The Intersection of Class and Criminality.

This guide is based on the 2018 Atria paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide include discussion of sexual assault, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, child death, death, substance use, addiction, and mental illness.

Plot Summary

I Found You has several intersecting plots: two narratives take place in 2016, another narrative takes place three weeks earlier, and the third narrative takes place in 1993. The novel begins in 2016, alternating between the perspectives of Alice, a single mother of three children living in Ridinghouse Bay, and Lily, who immigrated to the UK from Ukraine after marrying Carl, a UK citizen.

Alice supports her family by making flowers out of maps and selling them online. One day, Alice sees a man of about her age sitting on the beach in the rain. She learns that he’s lost his memory and offers him a place to stay in the converted shed she usually rents out behind her house. Alice’s daughter, Romaine, likes the man and names the amnesiac Frank. Frank asks to stay and tells Alice he doesn’t want to go to the police.

Frank wanders around town to jog his memory and starts to remember a girl and a young man. Alice gets Frank clothes and food. When Frank remembers a man dying at the beach when he was a teenager, Alice and her friend Derry find a news story from 1993 about Anthony Ross dying on the beach of Ridinghouse Bay. Hearing the name causes Frank to faint; later it is revealed that Anthony is Frank’s father. When Frank comes to, he can’t remember why the name is important. Derry emails the newspaper to see if the journalist who wrote the story knows more. Frank sees the fanciest house in Alice’s neighborhood, and it seems familiar. After their walk on the beach, Alice and Franch have sex. Later, Frank has memories of strangling someone.

The next day, Alice and Frank go to the house, but no one answers the door, and they can hear a phone ringing inside. They go to a pub that looks familiar to Frank. There, he remembers that he loves a girl named Kirsty. Alice worries this is Frank’s romantic partner, but later it is revealed to be his dead sister. Later that night, Frank remembers that he is a single math teacher with a cat and remembers he can draw. Worried about his cat, Frank finally agrees to go to the police.

Meanwhile, Lily’s husband, Carl, goes missing. She reports this to the police, and they discover that his passport is fake. Lily goes to Carl’s office, takes his usual train back to Oxted, and asks the people on it if they’ve seen him. No one has. The police check Carl’s computer and open a locked drawer in Carl’s desk. Inside are money, keys, and wedding rings.

Carl’s friend Russ calls the house, and Lily asks to meet with him. Over coffee, she explains that Carl’s passport is fake. Russ doesn’t have any useful information about Carl. Lily’s mother calls and tells her to come home to Ukraine. Before she can leave, Lily has to find out the truth. She goes through Carl’s mail and finds a number he said was his mother’s; he called it on the day of their wedding.

Lily calls the number repeatedly, but there is no answer. Frustrated, she throws the phone and breaks it. Then, she calls the number from her cell phone. A woman answers and, when Lily asks about Carl, the woman says she doesn’t have a son. Lily tells the woman Carl is missing, and the woman hangs up. Russ does an internet search for the number and finds the address for it in Ridinghouse Bay. He drives Lily there.

No one is at the house, but one of the keys from Carl’s locked drawer opens the door. Only one room inside looks lived in, and Lily decides to stay there alone so Russ can go back to his wife and infant. Lily searches through the house but finds no information about Carl. In the morning, she decides to go into town and ask around about him.

Before going to the police, Alice and Frank meet Derry for coffee. Lily comes into the same coffee shop and asks the clerk about Carl. She sees Frank but doesn’t recognize him. Lesley, the reporter who wrote the story about Anthony Ross, comes to the coffeehouse as well. She identifies Frank as Anthony’s son, Graham Ross.

The chapters of the novel set in 1993 are told from the perspective of Graham, who goes by “Gray” as a teenager. His family, including his mom, dad, and sister, Kirsty, rent a cottage in Ridinghouse Bay. Mark, who stays with his aunt, Kitty, in the fancy house, begins courting Kirsty. Gray doesn’t like Mark, but Mark invites the whole Ross family for dinner at Kitty’s house. Kirsty is impressed with the animals there.

Mark takes Kirsty on a date to the fairground, but Gray tails them and sees Kirsty’s first kiss. Next, Mark invites Kirsty to see a movie. Her parents give permission without realizing Kirsty doesn’t want to go. Gray watches Mark drop off Kirsty after the movie; Kirsty doesn’t want to kiss Mark, and he gets upset.

The next day, Kirsty refuses to see Mark, and Anthony has to intervene to get Mark to leave. A few days later, Gray and his family see Mark at the pub. Gray is attracted to one of Mark’s friends, Izzy, and she convinces him to come to Mark’s party and bring Kirsty. Gray and Kirsty are pressured into taking ecstasy, and Gray has his first kiss with Izzy. Later, when Gray and Kirsty are alone outside, Mark confronts Kirsty about turning him down.

Gray tries to intervene, but Mark pulls a knife on Kirsty and breaks Gray’s wrist. Then, Mark locks Gray and Kirsty in a room, ties them up, and sexually assaults Kirsty. Gray gets free and stabs Mark with a coat hanger, giving Kirsty time to get Mark’s knife and stab him with it. Kirsty and Gray run to the beach and find Anthony there; he’s been looking for them. Mark grabs Kirsty and pulls her out to sea. Gray tries to stop him but can’t swim because of his broken wrist. Anthony swims after Kirsty and has a heart attack; he dies on the beach in Gray’s arms. Gray loses his memory of what happened that night.

In the present day, Alice, Lesley, Lily, and Frank find the address for Kitty’s house in Harrogate and drive there. Kitty tells them that Mark dragged Kirsty to shore with him and called Kitty. He wouldn’t let Kitty call an ambulance, and Kirsty died on the drive from the bay to Harrogate. Mark buried Kirsty in the garden of Kitty’s house there. He changed his identity to Carl. After learning that Carl is Mark, Lily calls the police.

In the narrative that starts three weeks before Alice meets Frank, Gray still has most of his memories, but he’s forgotten the traumatic event of his father’s death. He takes his math students to a math competition in London and sees Mark for the first time in many years. Gray suddenly remembers that Mark killed Kirsty and Anthony. He abducts Mark and ties him up in an abandoned housing development near his house in Oxted. Gray strangles Mark, thinks he killed him, and completely loses his memory.

In the present day, Mark is arrested after holding hostages in a bed and breakfast in Scotland. Kitty is also arrested as an accomplice to Kirsty’s murder but gets out on bail. She sells her houses and moves to an expensive flat. Lesley writes a follow-up piece about the arrests. Gray checks himself into a psychiatric ward. He invites Alice to Kirsty’s funeral. After Gray’s treatment, he drops his nickname and goes by Graham, his birth name. He and Alice start dating again.