Louise Glück and the trauma of being a replacement child

‘There is a deep resistance everywhere, including in the psychoanalytic world, to acknowledging this trauma.’ Photograph: Tim Gainey/Alamy

In her review of the Nobel prize-winning poet Louise Glück’s new novel, Marigold and Rose, which recreates the first year of life for twins, it is a shame that Fiona Sampson (The babies’ tale, 25 November) does not mention the fact that Glück’s life was overshadowed by the death of a sister before Glück was born.

I have written about the lifelong effects, conscious and unconscious, of being a replacement child in my book on James Joyce, but there is a deep resistance everywhere, including in the psychoanalytic world, to acknowledging this trauma, even though it was a tragic reality for so many families and many artists and writers, as well as for such individuals as Vladimir Putin, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Mary Adams
London

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