April 8th6:30pm
This month we'll discuss Susie Boyt's warm, sharp-witted, and psychologically acute story of familial love, Loved and Missed.
“What makes writing important to me as a reader, but also as a writer, is to convey some small aspect of what it’s like to be alive. And this is a humanly astute novel about all the things you feel in any given moment: love of family, hope, despair, your complicated feelings about yourself — she captures so much so deftly.” —Claire Messud, The Guardian
"But the book is written with such understatement and so little pity that it slips past all your tactical gear and shanks you in the lungs, spleen, and femoral arteries before double-tapping you, in the final chapter, with a POV shift that’s borderline unethical. Ruth is pissed off, elegiac, heroic, ironic, forbearing, and glum, but never saintly, and Boyt’s careful modulations of tone keep you off-balance." —Tony Tulathimutte, The Paris Review
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.
Contact Genay, at bookclubs@mcnallyjackson.com with any questions.
Reserve your place with a $5 voucher, redeemable on the night of the book club meeting on any product in store.