In What Was Left, the author is engaged with this question and with controverting the presumption that mothers who leave their children are deviant or somehow malign. The novel is about a woman pushed to the edge of sanity by her infant, which has become a terrifying parasite in the void left by maternal bond and in the absence of any intellectual or adult stimulation (and sleep). Rachel’s flight abroad is more compelled palliation than abandonment, though she is still tormented by guilt.

The elegant structure of this Bildungsroman incorporates six countries and four sets of parents, Limprecht is in tight control of these narratives – because of their accretive effect, the novel’s ideas flourish. Her handling of metaphor is admirable, such as the decrepit man who ‘looked as though he would shrivel … like a dirty old balloon’. More than a study of post-partum depression, the novel considers how the lives and actions of our parents define us as adults; the Diaspora, expatriation, and not belonging; and a criticism of materialism that is sad but never sententious. It seeks to question characters’ motivations for damaging behaviour. The answer usually lies in the faults of the parent.