A Heart That Works: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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SCOTT NEUMYER: You’ve written a book about the most horrifying thing that can happen to a person, the death of their child, and now you’ve likely been talking about it in multiple interviews as well. How are you holding up? The next step was to actually read 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 by 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." SN: The book is beautiful, and it’s such a celebration of Henry’s life. It also feels very much like a private journal in ways, almost like a diary. Is this something that you were writing as everything was going on with Henry and his treatment, or was this something that it took you a while to sit down and decide you needed to write?

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: Well, that’s very kind of you to say. If there’s anything people can glean from merely reading the book, rather than experiencing it, is that the people we love and care for and take care of and value are all going to die. They’re just these temporarily coalesced little constellations of stardust that we have to be grateful for and love. We need to recognize the miracle of their existence and the ephemeral nature of everything that we love and hold dear.

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But - I can hear you say - Rob Delaney is an award-winning writer! Yes, yes he is; however, I believe his awards are for scripts and comedy. If this is a true example of his attempts at branching beyond, I think he should turn around now. The book is full of expletives, which not only gets super tedious, it makes me think Delaney is either lazy or unskilled at conveying the many facets of complicated grief. It's a little disorganized as well.

An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.Rob Delaney’s beautiful, bright, gloriously alive son Henry died. He was one when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. An experience beyond comprehension, but an experience Rob must share. Why does he feel compelled to talk about it, to write about it, to make people feel something like what he feels when he knows it will hurt them? Because, despite Henry’s death, Rob still loves people. For that reason, he wants them to understand. A Heart That Works is an intimate, unflinching and fiercely funny exploration of loss – from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that follows, through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. To make things almost impossible, more death visits the Delaney family, and it makes the sadness almost insurmountable. But of course they have to deal with it. RD: Everything makes me a better writer. As a human being, rather than “better,” I would say it has made me more useful. Like if a car runs somebody over, better having me there than your average, non-EMT in that if you’re going through something difficult, I might be of better use than I used to be anyway. His memoir offers solace to those who have faced devastation – and helps those who haven’t understood where the true meaning of life is found.

Delaney writes beautifully about how caring for – and loving – his son became almost an addiction; and the way he writes about missing the calluses that develop on his fingers from operating his son’s suctioning machine was as touching a depiction as it was cruel.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 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. After [Henry] died, I had the odd sensation of somehow being older than my parents, or at the very least 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. 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 Henry finally dies, Delaney very specifically ropes off what he will and won't tell the reader: