The mother’s tale

‘I’m sick of this story of yours, this idea that it’s about drugs. If you want that to be the story then go away and write one of your f***ing novels about it, OK?’ says the angry son towards the end of The Lost Child, which goes nowhere slowly, despite the rollercoaster ride of publicity it has received.

It is hard not to think that the boy has a point. Why didn’t Myerson do the decently indecent thing and write a novel? Plenty of writers — good writers — make little up, but nontheless deploy the mask of fiction which also provides protection for traduced parents, children, lovers and friends of the nightmare novelist. Perhaps Myerson is professional enough to know when not to write a novel. In this instance, there is the inconvenient fact that there is no story. Instead, we get a series of anguished vignettes of her dope- smoking son that interrupt a failed attempt to uncover a story about an early-19th-century girl, Mary Yelloly, who made up a Picture History of a family of minor gentry.