The Sweet Relief of Miss­ing Chil­dren is a dark­ly sus­pense­ful nov­el that drops us off on the streets of New York City, where a pre­co­cious twelve-year-old girl, Leono­ra, goes miss­ing with­out a trace. Miles upstate and many years ear­li­er, a lone­ly boy, Paul, becomes fed up with his neg­li­gent moth­er, whose fear­ful, des­per­ate search for a ​“good man” even­tu­al­ly dri­ves him out of her sight and out of their house. With­out leav­ing a note, rebel­lious teenage Judith runs away from home with an old­er lover who promis­es adven­ture and thrilling, new plea­sures. Though the dis­ap­pear­ances are sep­a­rat­ed by years, a thread of inter­con­nec­tion draws these rest­less souls togeth­er. Each voice, while telling its own sto­ry, ulti­mate­ly comes togeth­er to form a dar­ing, pro­found cho­rus of haunt­ing encoun­ters with aban­don­ment and loy­al­ty, self-betray­al and self-dis­cov­ery. The New York­er prais­es The Sweet Relief of Miss­ing Chil­dren as a ​“fleet, brave, emo­tion­al­ly lumi­nous new nov­el.”