Lost Son spans Western Europe from 1875 to 1917, depicting Rilke's life from birth to age 42.
The poet is shown as child, lover, husband, father, protégé, misfit soldier, and lifelong wanderer.
The novel explores Rilke's relationships with his parents, his wife Clara Westhoff and their daughter Ruth, the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, and Lou Andreas-Salomé.
Publishers Weekly praised Cunningham's talent, but concluded that "unwelcome shifts into second-person and passages rife with adjective abuse mar this ambitious undertaking".
[2] Vernon Peterson of The Oregonian compared the book favorably to Cunningham's debut novel The Green Age of Asher Witherow, writing that Cunningham "has achieved a mature style and authentic voice in Lost Son".