Tom died when he was four.

To stop herself from forgetting him, his mother tries to write Tom's story, the story of his death. She strives to describe it all as precisely as possible. It's the details that will lead her and the reader to the truth. Set in the Blue Mountains and in Sydney, Tom is Dead is a suspense novel in which Darrieussecq takes us to the core of grief and drives this narrator's experience into our hearts.

'There are very few writers who may have changed my perception of the world, but Darrieussecq is one of them.' The Times