Indeed, the entire family is secretive. They seem not to share histories, or whereabouts, or even thoughts. The secret-keeping is not specific to Maggie and Iris, but is instead a multigenerational pall beginning with a barely there Holocaust story line that is revealed as a secret too. One gets the urge to have this family sit down together and spill their guts. In Maggie’s narrative, we are right alongside her as she begins to discover the woman her mother really was, rather than the woman Maggie thought she was. Maggie’s own sense of self waffles in the process. We learn early on that Maggie is not one for long-term relationships. Her girlfriend Lucia is the one in bed with her when she learns her mother is dead. “Maggie doesn’t know what to say, because she doesn’t know what Lucia can do. Her mother has never died before. She’s never before had a girlfriend for this long, this many months in a row. She doesn’t know what having a person help her in this intimate way should look like.” The combative mother uses verbal and emotional abuse to “win” but can resort to physical force as well. She rationalizes her behaviors as being necessary because of defects in her daughter’s character or behavior. This is dangerous territory. 6. Unreliable.

Malissiaz wrote: "This is my first attempt at a book group. I finished this book and felt it didn’t end it just stopped. The author didn’t do justice to Iris’s character. Her chapters were tidbits in what kind of pe..." Literal abandonment leaves its own special scars, especially in a culture that believes in the automatic nature of mother love and instinctual behavior. In addition to being excruciatingly painful, it is also bewildering.

These vignettes from the distant past also help to accomplish what is arguably Masad’s largest triumph: superb and cohesive character development. The novel is nearly free of “extras” and bit characters; each person Maggie knows or encounters is fully rounded and given an identity full of complexity. This is particularly important considering Masad presents an inclusive and intersectional cast across race, class, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation. The novel’s plot presents many opportunities for flat and convenient character work, but, here again, the author navigates around easy traps and pitfalls. You are what you are. You are what you are feeling. Allowing us to believe in our own reality. Persuading us that it is safe to expose our early fragile beginning-to-grow true self.” More famously, but in the same vein, Mary Karr’s memoir The Liar’s Club depicts both Mary and her older sister stepping in to mother themselves or their mother.

Emotionally unavailable mothers, those who actively withdraw at a daughter’s approach or who withhold love from one child while granting it to another, inflict a different kind of damage. Be mindful that all children are hardwired to rely on their mothers, thanks to evolution.This, in the end, may be the crux of a parent’s power over a child: not only to create the world the child lives in but also to dictate how that world is to be interpreted.”

The novel’s setup and accompanying journey are both absorbing, but they yield somewhat superficial discoveries about Iris. We meet the lovers of the title, but don’t ever understand many of the choices Iris makes while in their company. The book never quite reconciles the Iris we understand within the familial unit of the Krause home with the woman Maggie learns about in talking to these men. Iris remains as much a mystery to the reader as she does to Maggie.

8. Role-reversed.

Maggie assumes this rejection of closeness is a byproduct of “seeing such a good example in her parent’s marriage” which perhaps was “detrimental, made her standards too high, her expectations over the top.” That said, after she finds the letters, Maggie realizes perhaps she knew far less about her parents’ relationship than she thought. “Iris knew nothing about her,” Maggie says about her mother at one point, but it seems to be a two-way street. Despite what we're told, women aren't hardwired to love their offspring. Evolution has equipped the child with a need for maternal attention.