When childhood grief is silenced, mourning goes underground and may last a lifetime. In this hybrid memoir Judy Lev blends memories, facts, retrieved documents, letters real and imagined, short fiction and personal essays to grieve the loss of her baby brother Joey in 1951, when Lev was five.
 
Our Names Do Not Appear explores the long-term effects of family silence, as Lev ponders who else died on the day she learned of Joey’s death. Lev celebrates the use of imagination as an important tool in the redemptive trek through the chaotic landscape of loss.