Loved and Missed
susie boyt
(VIRAGO, 208 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • tel 020 7799 4064

Of all the forms of unrequited love, that of a mother for her child must be the most painful, especially when the child is a girl. Ruth, the narrator, spends much of the novel pining for her cold and absent daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor also has a baby daughter, Lily, whom she is incapable of caring for, or about. The father is soon out of the picture, echoing Ruth’s own situation as a single mother, for Eleanor’s father also swiftly removed himself. Ruth’s only emotional support comes from a trio of female friends.