Story that doesn't quite work, powerful personal essay in current New Yorker

I don't know much about Tess Hadley except that she's very English and she's been welcomed as part of the corral of New Yorker writers, with her stories appearing there now with regularity. I don't quite get it - there's definitely nothing wrong with her stories, but each one leaves me feeling a bit empty, as if something's missing, and none stays distinctly in my mind for long. Her current story, Honor, is a good example: the premise kind of interesting, a woman looks back on her childhood and remembers a very strange moment when an aunt (sister of her completely estranged father, whom she was told is dead) comes suddenly to live with her and her "mum." She knows something's terribly wrong, but only over time does she put the pieces together and learn that her aunt holds herself responsible for the death of her son/narrator's cousin - she left the house while father was in a rampage and father killed the boy. All good, strong material for a story, but it's told with such coldness and distance that I never got engaged with it. Partly it's the narrative strategy of looking back on these events from a long period away - that can be an effective strategy for sure (cf., William Maxwell), but Hadley doesn't make much of it - we don't see exactly how these events changed the narrator's life, for example - they just feel like events more thought about than felt. For contrast, read the very powerful personal essay in same issue by Francisco Goldman, describing in agonizing detail the terrible death of his young wife. Francisco, wherever you are - I am sure you have touched thousands with your words; my thoughts are with you.