In Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask , the protagonist’s obsessive love for his mother’s memory becomes a shield against his own homosexual desires and the brutal reality of wartime Japan. She is an icon of nostalgic safety. Conversely, in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005), nine-year-old Oskar Schell’s entire quest—finding the lock for a mysterious key left by his father—is haunted by the ghost of his mother’s grief. Their relationship is defined by what they cannot say to one another after 9/11. The novel’s climax hinges on Oskar realizing that his mother has known his secret all along; their love is revealed not in words, but in the shared act of baring wounds.