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A Heart That Works: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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Alternative parking is available nearby at the APCOA Cornwall Road Car Park (490 metres), subject to charges. Blue Badge parking at APCOA Cornwall Road All of which is to ask the question: is it possible to write a critical review of someone who is bearing witness, in writing, to the incalculable pain and emotional chaos suffered on the death of their young child? Does the weight of its emotional punch do away with the need for an anaemic assessment of a writer’s craft? Or is the very act of writing something so transgressively raw and open, a cry for these experiences to be normalised – and therefore a request for it to be treated like any other book? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be mean if it were awful, at least publicly. Which makes me worry that I’ll sound disingenuous when I say that it gives me great pleasure, and no pleasure at all, to write that Rob Delaney’s new book is both overwhelmingly moving and, in any other way you might assess a book, excellent. Much as I wish he hadn’t had to write it, I am glad he did, because such deaths do happen, but largely in private Suffering an incredible tragedy, like the loss of Delaney’s 2-year-old son Henry to a brain tumor in 2018, is something no one should ever have to experience, much less have to write about. But to then have to relive this very tragedy again as I ask him questions about his book? Yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me either. RD: More for others. I thought, basically, for better or for worse, I’m on TV and in movies, so some people know who I am out there in the wider world, which makes it a little easier for me to get a message out there. And only now do I have a message worth sharing. I haven’t done anything original with the book. I’ve just done what people do in AA, and what people do in our bereaved parents’ group, which is honestly tell about what it’s like to have your child die. And then what people do with that is up to them. But if I do it honestly, and I really tell the truth to the best of my abilities of what it feels like, then I know that might help other people who’ve lost kids, who’ve lost siblings. And that’s not because I’m anything special. It’s because I’m no better and no worse than any other bereaved parents out there. But I have seen, felt, and lived through something that is rare. It’s happened millions of times, but percentage wise, most people don’t have a child die. And so, I guess I did feel a responsibility. People know who I am, so I better use that in a way that can help people.

And so it was that I started the year determined to read at least a hundred books, and swiftly began my first – A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney. A Heart That Works Book Review Any sized item can be left in our cloakroom, including fold-away bicycles. We don’t accept non-folding bicycles. Items must be collected on the same day they are stored. From time to time, the cloakroom may not be available. You won’t be able to bring any bags over 40 x 25 x 25cm into the auditorium of the Royal Festival Hall or the Queen Elizabeth Hall, or into the Hayward Gallery, so please leave large bags at home.There is a haunting rant when he recalls people asking more openly about his father’s cancer than his son’s. “Have you forgotten that I held my two-year old’s body after rigor mortis had set in?… Why don’t you ask me about that, you stupid fking ahole?” I love how Delaney writes about Henry, always introducing him in words like 'my beautiful boy', forever reminding you how much he misses him. Overall, his writing flows well, and can be quite.. peppery, regarding cursing, if that's something that is important to you (if you can't curse when your child is dying, when can you?). I spent my birthday reading an advance copy of Rob Delaney’s A Heart That Works. Rob’s son Henry died in early 2018. I remember reading Rob’s post about Henry’s death while lying in bed with my son Miles as he was falling asleep next to me. I sobbed as quietly as I could reading Rob’s words and thinking “I can’t imagine.” A few months later, Miles was killed at age 5. Since then, I have felt a connection with this family I have never met, and I always look for Rob’s words about his son and about grief. They help me. I watched the interview and raced to buy the book...which was weeks 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.

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.In a Guardian piece published in the run-up to Britain’s 2019 parliamentary elections, he wrote about how Henry had been able to die at home, in comfort, thanks to help from the N.H.S. Having a child die is horrible; the gist of Delaney’s argument is that, within horrible, there are degrees, and that political choices can influence which degree you experience. He took time, amid arguments about income inequality and political imagination, to dwell on moments of happiness in Henry’s life, like the first time that he got to go on the hospital roof and, after many months inside, feel sunlight and wind on his skin.

My first introduction to Rob Delaney was on Elizabeth Day’s brilliant podcast, How to Fail. During the episode, he spoke with great candour about his son Henry, who – aged one – was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and later, devastatingly, died.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.) Most of the audience had likely heard Delaney raving about the N.H.S. before. He and his family moved to England so that he could act in the British sitcom “Catastrophe,” which he starred in and co-wrote with Sharon Horgan. After the show took off, Delaney and his family stayed; in the years since, he’s become a British household name. In 2015, his wife gave birth to their third son, Henry. Shortly after Henry turned one, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He spent much of his life in hospitals, and died before he turned three. Ever since, Delaney has been publicly candid about his grief, and about his appreciation for all that the N.H.S. did for his family. He made a campaign video for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, sharing his family’s story to give emotional weight to arguments against health-spending cuts and health-care privatization. He’s made similar appeals to American audiences, urging people to vote for Bernie Sanders, to join the Democratic Socialists of America, and to fight for health care as a public good. Items are left in our cloakrooms at the owner’s risk, and we cannot accept any responsibility for loss or damage, from any cause, to these items. We're cash-free

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