Shadowchild: A Meditation on Love and Loss

Awoman who lives longer than her husband is called a widow; a man who remains behind without his wife, a widower. A child without parents is an orphan. But what do you call the father and mother of a child who has died?" Nearly all writings about deceased children are poignant, but they rarely have the power to move readers as far beyond the sentimental response as Dutch novelist Thomése does in this small, grand book. Brief enough to be read in a sitting, it is as resonant as a poem. One pauses and lingers after each of the 50 meditations, some as brief as "Panic" ("The smell of clean sheets, the bedroom window open. A new day. The sunlight coming in and finding her nowhere"). Thomése's prose is spare and beautiful, as he describes the ambulance, the hospital, the death (from a brain hemorrhage) and the empty nursery. He shares, rather than parades, literary and musical references: a thought of Heidegger's; an echo of Orpheus; a challenge to Goethe ("Your poem should not have ended with 'In his arms the child lay dead.' That's how it should have started"); a moment when Charlie Parker's music threw "open all the windows in the house and blew out all the evil spirits, one by one." Grieving parents will find a knowing companion in Thomése, but even those who haven't experienced such trauma will find this evocative book a treasure. Agent, Marijke Nagtegaal. (June)