The loss of children unfortunately is not uncommon. Consider Sandy Hook, Uvalde and of course the migrant families separated on the U.S. southern border. In her latest novel, Concita De Gregorio asks us to consider not the lost children but instead those left behind. In point of fact, her focus is even narrower than that. She meditates on the absence of words in most languages to denote those left behind. This is unfortunate, says De Gregorio, “Because having a name…makes you feel, despite the error, like you’re in the right place.” Prior to losing her daughters, her protagonist had status as a wife and mother, but now she no longer carries either of those names.

This is a portrait of a woman, Irina Lucidi, whose twin daughters were cruelly taken from her by a controlling and troubled husband. She is forced to accommodate to this new reality, and to reassess her identity. Irina was a successful attorney with twin daughters and a prosperous husband living in Switzerland. What seemed like a perfect family is obliterated when her husband commits suicide, and her twin daughters disappear. Their disappearance is never solved because of misogynistic police who view Irina as overly emotional and just overlook important leads. Despite the mystery, one is left with the impression that her 6-year-old daughters were murdered by her husband.

Irina is compelled to examine her own family history because of an unsettling parallel. She feels a strong affinity to her great grandmother who was forced live without her own child. She had an out of wedlock child with an Italian immigrant, who was bribed by her powerful American father to return to Italy with the child. The child, named Mayme, was never reunited with her biological mother in America.

De Gregorio avoids a linear narrative style by revealing the story with a series of reflections, letters and lists written by Irina along with letters written by an unnamed colleague. These not only provide the facts of the case and Irina’s family history, but also her state of mind as she copes with the absence of her girls. This approach provides much more than a conventional murder mystery. Instead, it is an intimate meditation on loss, identity and the power of words. ( )