The Missing Word

A heart wrenching story a novel based on a true story.A couple divorcing the father picks up their daughters for normal visitation,none of them are ever seen again the father commits suicide and the girls are presumed dead.Horror heartbreak there mother must cope continue to live work somehow survive.So well written so painful a story I will not forget.#netgalley #europaeditions

This book is a translation from the original Italian and is based upon a heart-breaking true story of Irina whose ex-husband disappeared with their 6 year old twin daughters. Days after taking them, he took his own life and there was no sign of the girls and Irina is still searching.

The book takes the form of letters and meditations from Irina and we see how she has dealt with the loss of her daughters. How closely the author has stuck to the original writings is not known, but the Irina in the book is not some hysterical woman, she is rational and clear in her thoughts and in the demands she makes of those who she believes failed her when the girls first disappeared. She is a woman wronged, not only by her ex-husband but also by the authorities that should have been investigating the adduction. Instead, because she was an Italian woman in Switzerland, she was treated almost with disdain. It is to these people that she clearly sets out the wrongs that they have done her and her requests.

In her writings, she describes how she lives with her grief, how she keeps her daughters alive in her thoughts and it is powerful and so heart-breaking because this is a true story and Irina is still searching for her daughters.

The title of the book is also relevant because as Irina writes, there is no word for a parent who has lost a child. There are words for those who lose husbands, wives; words for children who lose parents but not for parents who lose a child and this sense of being invisible is also explored.

A book that stays with you and makes you pray that Irina does find resolution. Thank you Netgalley and Europa Edition for allowing me to read this.

This was a page turner, filled with many eloquent and elegant expressions, which stand in sharp contrast to the horrors that Irina has faced. I was shocked to learn that this was based on a true story. I could feel Irina's quiet but strong desperation in finding out what happened to her girls, and it's painful to realise that the investigation into this case might have been conducted in a rather slipshod way because of racism and sexism — Irina is an Italian woman, which is ostensibly a formula for discrimination in Switzerland, where the case was handled. The stereotypes Europeans have towards each other was a new thing I learned through this book.

I can only hope that the good work she is doing and the publishing of her story for the world to see can provide her some sort of comfort and strength.

This is one of those books where it may be better not to know exactly what it is about, because the subject matter is so horrible that you probably wouldn’t pick it up. I am very glad I did though, because it is a wise, respectful exploration of grief in a very clear and accessible way. I don’t recall a book of a mere 120 pages having such an emotional impact on me.

It tells the true story of Irina Lucidi, whose two 6-year old daughters were taken away by her husband and presumably killed in 2011. He left her a note saying only that they didn’t suffer and that she would never see them again. Apparently the case is well-known in Italy, but I had never heard of it.

The book consists of letters and other writings of the mother. I am not sure how closely Concita de Gregorio has stuck to the original writings, but what we read is of an extremely clear, lucid and logical prose, which I found very convincing and is for me the strongest point of the novel. Irina is clearly a very intelligent and rational woman and it is quite incredible how she has managed to deal with her loss.

She clearly has some scores to settle as well, in this case with the Swiss police and also with her German-speaking family in law, both of whom she has felt discriminated by for being Italian and for being a woman, whereas her ex-husband is Swiss and German speaking. The 'innocent' stereotyping of Southern-Europeans by Northern-Europeans (they are dumb, they are lazy and unproductive, they make a mess and cannot organise) is not only an interesting and underestimated theme, but also – I find – a real problem in an integrating Europe.

“The only thing that's more painful than not having your loved ones near you is not knowing where your loved ones are. Not even having their bodies so that you can imagine them walking somewhere else.” –The Missing Word

The Missing Word is a heart-aching read. A tribute to all mothers out there who in their silence still weeping for their missing child and hoping for the day when they got to see them and hold them in their arms once again.

It broke me reading about Irina when she poured out all her heart and tell her story. All the backlash and criticism she receives. In a way, the world expects that a woman should close her heart and for all, continue to grieve and not deserved happiness of all sorts. Our community also condemn that if a mother is working and unable to take care of her child due to work, her love for them is less.
She is trying so much to survive, to soothe her heart and trying to be loved again. Why can't we just be supportive and understanding?

There are all sorts of things she faces in trying to find her children in the county that's not her own, with little assistance. I'm glad she found the bravery to tell the world her story. May her story be of help.

Thank you to NetGalley and Europa Editions for the eARC.

"It's incredible how much pain we can inflict, convinced we're acting for the best."

On Sunday, Irinas' estranged husband left in their car without warning and took their daughters with them, their teddies left forgotten and still on the beds.

On Thursday, he killed himself.

Those fateful five days contain the one answer Irina has been looking for ever since - where are her daughters? They haven't been seen since that car left their family home, and Irina has been left searching for something she can't even name.

"Nobody belongs to anyone, I believe. Anyone, if they wish, can belong to everybody."
There is a word for a wife without a husband, for a child without a mother, but there is one word missing - that is so painful that language may not be able to describe it - a Mother without a child.

This is not just a journey of unexplained and unresolved loss, but of the meanings of grief and recovery. Told through her inner most thoughts, lists, letters and memories, she doesn't tell us a story exactly but shows us a snapshot of her innermost thoughts and musings during a time of endless uncertainty and turmoil.

The short, concise chapters make this easy to fly through the pages, with deeply personal and emotive prose that still manages to create poetic, beauty imagery in so few pages. With an urgent, desperate pace throughout - we feel every horrifying and dreadful moment along with Irina as she struggles to move on with her identity stripped from her, her heart shattered and maybe worst of all - the endless unknown.

Atmospheric, deeply riveting and emotive - this hauntingly beautiful story will stay with me for some time.