A Heart That Works
Book by Rob Delaney
DETAILS
Publisher : Spiegel & Grau (November 29, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 196 pages ISBN-10 : 1954118317 ISBN-13 : 978-1954118317 Item Weight : 11.2 ounces Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches Best Sellers Rank: #369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Grief & Bereavement #1 in Love & Loss #20 in Memoirs (Books) , People Fall Must Read pick * 2022 BuzzFeed Fall Reading pick * Time 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 A visceral and deeply personal memoir by the star of the Amazon Prime series Catastrophe , about love, loss, and fatherhood. In 2016, Rob Delaney’s one-year-old son, Henry, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family had moved from Los Angeles to London with their two young boys when Rob’s wife was pregnant with Henry, their third. The move was an adventure and a challenge that would bind them even more tightly together as they navigated the novelty of London, the culture clashes, and the funhouse experience of Rob’s fame—thanks to his role as co-creator and co-star of the hit series Catastrophe . Henry’s illness was a cataclysm that changed everything about their lives. Amid the hospital routine, surgeries, and brutal treatments, they found a newfound community of nurses, aides, caregivers, and fellow parents contending with the unthinkable. Two years later, Henry died, and his family watched their world fall away to reveal the things that matter most. A Heart That Works is Delaney’s intimate, unflinching, and fiercely funny exploration of what happened – from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that followed through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. In the madness of his grief, Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind. Delaney’s memoir—profound, painful, full of emotion, and bracingly honest—offers solace to those who have faced devastation and shows us how grace may appear even in the darkest times. Read more
REVIEW
Hold on your hats n’ glasses, this is a long one. A few weeks ago, my grief therapist texted me a link to a video with the message along the lines of, "I won't send you every grieving parent interview, but this one you have to see." It was this author on The One Show talking about the passing of his two-year-old son to brain cancer and how he'd written a memoir about it. I had no idea it was going to be Rob Delaney, he who is beloved by me for the small, but crucial role of Peter in Deadpool 2 (X-Force!) (I'm also under the general suspicion that he and David Harbour are the same person. It's the mustache. Have they ever been in the same room together? Just saying.) I watched the interview and raced to buy the book...which was months from release. And it was because this author said something I felt like I'd been waiting to hear since June of 2018 when my 10 year old daughter Isabel, who spent five days on an ECMO, passed away from a cardiac arrest. And that was that he wanted to "write something very angry and hurt people." He didn't, by the way. There is righteous anger in this beautiful book, but I identified instantly with that sentiment without him having to explain why. In that moment, I knew this book would unlock the last door that has thus far prevented me from writing my own memoir. And I was right. Here was raw honesty that’s been missing from my imaginary rough drafts that alternated between fluffy unicorns and rainbows, to shoving the worst, hardest, most effed up parts at reader and saying, BEHOLD MY SUFFERING, FOR IT IS GREATER THAN THINE, whether that's true or not. So I mentally gave it 5 stars right out the gate. The next step was to actually ready it, which I did in a few short hours, alternately laughing my ass off, crying, or staring in disbelief at the serendipities in our experiences: from the importance of Joan Didion, to memorial tattoos (I have a sleeve of them) to a loved one's suicide, to our children dying in 2018 on our birthdays. Plus, a host of micro-similarities that only come from having an inkling of what the writer is talking about. I am no means an authority on his grief, but I'm in the club and I get it. And reading this book was him saying to me, "I get it." “After [Henry] died, I had the odd sensation of somehow being older than my parents, or at the very last having seen something that they hadn't, and it had changed me. ...No one had anything to offer me that could light my path and show me a way forward...That was a very sad and lonely feeling.” This entire book could have been that paragraph only, and I'd have considered it money well spent. For grieving parents, this book is a path forward. For those struggling to know what to do for a grieving parent, this book is a path forward. My protectiveness over this book and everything in it might be irrational but anyone giving it one star can go "gargle a big bowl of diarrhea." Until you walk a mile, and all that. Because when you lose a beautiful, kind, sweet child every day forward on this earth needs a trigger warning. The blinders come off, and the blurred line between what is bs and what is real and true evaporates, and sometimes you just want to burn it all down. And lest this review devolve into being all about ME (too late!) It bears reiterating that it's funny as hell. Darker, angrier, even funnier thoughts about losing a child share space with the grace and beauty inherent in such an experience, and it should. The metric crap-ton of hard stuff makes everything else all the more precious. To leave it out is to miss the point entirely, so I appreciate (such a weak word) the honesty in this book for mashing them both together and saying, "You might never know this, I hope you never know this, but THIS is what it is." I am inspired and grateful for this book. Another thing I know, is that a lost child slipping out of the memories, or thoughts, or the consciousnesses of the rest of the world, (that continues to chug on despite the enormous hole carved out of your soul) is another kind of agony. When I light my nightly candle to Izzy, I'll add Henry to my thoughts and be grateful for him too.
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