“The Words for Go Away is about grief, childhood, marital breakdown, and the forces of loss that shape us. It is set in the 1970s Arabia, in a place of astonishing emptiness and wild beauty, where children have the freedom to roam and where adults work tax-free, drink and party. But even so far from home, the past cannot be escaped. There is an unprocessed grief beneath the surface, just out of view, that feels wrong but is impossible to name. As the narrator grows older, and a better life for the family proves elusive, the past repeats and childhood is betrayed.” From the Introduction