Loved and Missed
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4.7 • 6 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
With her daughter in the throes of drug addiction, a mother takes over the care of her granddaughter—and is transformed by the bond that forms between them—in this warm, sharp-witted, and psychologically acute story of familial love by a praised British novelist.
Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her, almost unrecognizable. Will it last?
Love and Missed is a whip-smart, incisive, and mordantly witty novel about love's gains and missteps. British writer Susie Boyt's seventh novel, and the first to be published in the United States, is a triumph.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British writer Boyt delivers a story of filial estrangement in her mordant and touching U.S. debut. The nonlinear narrative opens roughly 15 years ago with Ruth, a sixth-form teacher and single mother, hosting three friends in her London flat. One friend asks about Ruth's daughter, Eleanor, who left home several years earlier as a teen and is addicted to heroin. Ruth is raising Eleanor's toddler, Lily, who she feels has "compensated" her for losing her relationship with Eleanor. In a flashback, one of many poignant and sadly funny scenes, Ruth describes meeting Lily's "cavern-faced" father during a Christmas picnic. Describing how she attempted to inject cheer into the grim scene in the dingy park where they meet, Ruth reflects, "I was smiling all the while, just gently, but in my heart I was thinking this might be the saddest occasion of my life." Though the attention paid to Ruth's friends in the opening is a bit misleading, patient readers will appreciate Boyt's subtle and gradual accrual of details about Ruth's life, such as the identity and fate of Eleanor's father. Most powerful, though, is a final chapter from Lily's point of view as a late teen, as she reckons with her unorthodox upbringing and proves to have picked up Ruth's generosity and strong sense of observation—but not her sadness. Boyt's assured effort brims with intelligence and feeling.
