Loved and Missed

July 31, 2023
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.