Lena Beck

Lena Beck is one of the novel's first person narrators and primary characters. Her parents are Matthias and Karin Beck. She is nominally married to Lars Rogner, and her children are Hannah and Jonathan. At the start of the novel, Lena's sections of narration appear in italics. The reader later learns this formatting indicates that her character has died. Her brief sections of narration, therefore, seem to occur from the beyond.

When Lena was 23 years old, she disappeared from her college campus after a night of partying. Thirteen years later, police are still searching for her whereabouts, and have discovered few details to resolve the case. Though her parents believed she was a responsible student, Lena was a lost young woman who became involved with a series of wayward young people. She was doing poorly at school, and uncertain how to handle her future. During this time...