THE DAYTIME READ

Grief is never a straight line. This is what Nell Freudenberger’s Lost and Wanted (Viking, approx €12.99, out May 30) explores, using a blend of scientific rationality and spirituality. Helen is an MIT physics professor renowned in her field. A single mother by choice, she is shaken to learn of the sudden death of her best friend, Charlie, whom she met while at Harvard. She hadn’t seen Charlie in a year prior to her death, so why are Helen and her seven-yearold son, Jack, so sure they see her everywhere? Her presence lingers, but Helen is skeptical of anything supernatural – even when she continues receiving eerily knowing texts from Charlie’s cell phone, the same one Charlie’s husband hadn’t been able to find. The author’s use of the integration of ideas from physics challenges the reader to think differently about time, existence and how we survive in times of turmoil. Helen has lost not only her best friend, but the lives they could have had together, and this is illustrated beautifully.