The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is a novel by Northern Irish author Maggie O'Farrell, published in 2006 by Headline Review, concerning three generations of a Scottish family.

Euphemia Esme Lennox was brought up as a child in India with her elder sister Kathleen (Kitty), but following the death of her baby brother Hugo the family moved to Edinburgh.

The plot then shifts to the present day: Iris discovers that she has a great aunt in a psychiatric unit, who has been there for some sixty years.

Iris never knew about her great aunt, as her grandmother Kathleen suffering from Alzheimer's, has never revealed that she had a sister.

It is eventually revealed that Esme is in fact Iris's grandmother, becoming pregnant as a result of rape, and due to her incarceration in the asylum the baby was adopted by Kitty.