Loved and Missed

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 is a drug addict who has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in large ways and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need: nourishment, distance, affection. But all her gifts fall short: what Eleanor wants is only what will mutilate. When Ruth finds a body, the victim of an overdose, in Eleanor’s apartment, she gives her a large envelope of cash in exchange for Lily and takes the baby home. She wonders how her friends see her: “Tall, chestnut-haired, despairing? Would they claim in order to be brave I’ve had to coarsen myself?”

No matter, Lily is a life force, and as she grows, her benevolent presence begins to soften the sharp-edged defeats and disappointments that have menaced Ruth for so long. For a person left by people all her life, love without fear is an almost unrecognizable feeling, and will it last? Loved 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 US, is a triumph.

Susie Boyt is the author of six novels and the memoir My Judy Garland Life, which was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize, staged at the Nottingham Playhouse, and serialized on BBC Radio 4. She has written about art, life, and fashion for the Financial Times for many years and recently edited The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories by Henry James. She is also a director at the Hampstead Theatre. She lives in London with her family.