"Leaving the World" is a gripping work about a complex, prickly woman dealing with severe depression.

It's also an insightful journey through academia, the cinema, the differences between American and Canadian sensibilities, the social strata of libraries and the emotional impact of classical music.

Its heroine and narrator, Jane Howard, has such a hard life it at times seems implausible, but author Douglas Kennedy builds character so effectively, the occasional implausibility doesn't matter.

Scenes of dysfunctional families bracket this long book, which begins as a character study and ends as a mystery. Mr. Kennedy launches it as 13-year-old Jane tells her parents she'll never get married or have children. Her father leaves, never to return. Her mother never forgives Jane, claiming that assertion drove away the father.

Jane doesn't keep her vow to her parents, having a daughter after a brief affair. More detail would betray some key plot elements. All you need know is a tragedy befalls Jane for which she blames herself, plunging her into suicidal depression.

That's the first half of the book. How Jane pulls herself back into life consumes the second, and better, half.

She essentially erases her past and builds herself anew; Mr. Kennedy brings fresh changes on a timeworn theme of American literature, the reinvention of identity.

Here, Jane tells a psychiatrist about her drive to cut herself off from a past that crippled her:

"I was just so exhausted, so deranged, so not here ... and so terrified of the prospect, even though I was determined to leave the world. And when you are dead set on doing this you don't want to make contact with anyone who might convince you to do otherwise ..."

"Leaving the world," she repeated, trying out the expression. "I like it. It's almost romantic."

Jane rebuilds herself in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Mr. Kennedy's descriptions of the place are sharp. His exploration of the psychological workings of the staff at a Calgary library where Jane begins to mend is wonderful, particularly his delineation of the music librarian, Vern Byrne, a tweedy, troubled and deeply kindly man who restores grounding to Jane.

At that point, Mr. Kennedy introduces the plot line that ties everything together: the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl (the age Jane was when she told off her parents), Ivy Macintyre. The disappearance consumes Jane, turning her into an investigator. The Macintyre mystery, which at first seems tacked on, ultimately feels organic because Mr. Kennedy makes Jane's constantly evolving character so absorbing.

Her determination to find Ivy is key to Jane's healing, a process in which the reader can't help but feel invested. The minor flaws in "Leaving the World" don't negate its overarching success.

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