Two years later Henry died, and his family watched their world fall away to reveal the things that matter most. Delaney’s heartache is visceral and violent – a “decaying disused train station while freight train after freight train overloaded with pain roars through”. He doesn’t hope for death but one day, when he is learning to scuba dive at the bottom of a pool in Soho, he thinks that if something went wrong, he’d at least get to be with Henry. But here’s the thing: Rob Delaney does talk to me, and he’s not only incredibly gracious, thankful, and eloquent (all while still being heartbroken in so many ways), but he’s also funny and hopeful for the future and full of love for his family. It is this mindset that makes A Heart That Works so searingly beautiful and so utterly tragic at the same time. A memoir that feels like a diary written by a man who must watch as he’s helpless to save his young child, the book is raw and honest, which is precisely what makes it one that will likely help those who find themselves in a similar position. A Heart That Works is a testament to a father’s love and finding hope when it feels impossible.

In this memoir of loss, acclaimed writer and comedian Rob Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind. An unbearably brutal and beautiful book that I wish had never had to be written, but that I am all the better for having read. A Heart That Works is a stunning, luminous, vibrant tribute to Henry Delaney. Essential reading for us all. A Heart That Works Summary 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?).A drop-off point at the Royal Festival Hall (30 metres) has been created for visitors who are unable to walk from alternative car parks. Our Access Scheme 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 A memoir that charts Henry’s life – from his birth in London – where Delaney, his wife, and their two young sons moved to from LA to his illness – after weeks of vomiting he is diagnosed with a brain tumour – to his family’s desperate attempts to cure his illness. And then there is Henry. “In between Henry’s death was, of course, his life. That’s my favourite part. Henry led a hell of a life.” Little Henry liked Incy Wincy Spider, dancing to Justin Bieber, and, curiously, thumbing through one of those 1913 hen-do books, Don’ts for Husbands. He was “impossibly sweet and calm”. The last food he ate before the tracheostomy that left him permanently tube-fed was a chocolate croissant. 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.

Delaney talks about the madness of his grief, the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose when you’re the one left behind. 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." You can also use the external lift near the Artists' Entrance on Southbank Centre Square to reach Mandela Walk, Level 2. 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. A heart-wrenching and impressively self-aware story of a father living through the death of his young child.

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Describing how he and his sister are there for each other: "When one of us cries to the other, we don't try to fix it; we don't stammer platitudes. We just listen and hold." I will not tell you anything else about the moments before or after Henry’s death. I can talk about them, but I don’t want to try to confine them to ink. Maybe you have experienced something like them, or maybe someday you will." But that’s basically it for the N.H.S. “A discussion of national healthcare policy would be a book unto itself,” Delaney notes. Talking about Henry for a few moments in a political-campaign video is one thing; going on at any length about those politics in a book about Henry is, we can perhaps imagine, another. In a campaign video, Delaney has a mission: to mobilize his audience. In “A Heart That Works” he has a different one. If you come away with a newfound appreciation of health care as a public good, Delaney would probably like that. But it’s not the point. He’s trying to coax you up to the edge of grief’s abyss, and do what it takes—even tell you jokes—to get you to peer inside a little longer than you might have otherwise and, by doing so, maybe begin to learn something about how you want to live (which is related, but not reducible, to the question of how you want to vote). 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.

SN: It seems like you have an incredibly supportive family all the way around. Were your wife and family on board with you writing this from the start, or was there ever a moment when your wife maybe said something like, “This is a wound I just don’t want you to open again”? Alternative parking is available nearby at the APCOA Cornwall Road Car Park (490 metres), subject to charges. Blue Badge parking at APCOA Cornwall Road 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?Now Delaney and his wife, Leah, live in London with their three sons, the youngest of whom was born after Henry died. Henry spent months of his life living in a few different London hospitals, and the book is full of appreciation for the UK’s National Health Service and children’s hospice charities like the Rainbow Trust. In the wake of Henry’s death, Delaney has become an outspoken campaigner on behalf of the organizations that supported his family, speaking at political rallies and even weaving some lewd jokes about his love for the NHS into his stand-up routines. There were often moments reading this book when I had to look away and cry. But Delaney is acutely aware that this will be the case. “Why do I feel compelled to talk about it… to disseminate information designed to make people feel something like I feel? Done properly, it will hurt them. Why do I want to hurt people?”

SN: You talk about this a bit in the book — almost wondering why it was so important for you to write, why you felt compelled to talk about it. But then you kind of answer your own question a chapter or two later when you say, “[Joan] Didion made me feel less alone.” Which I think is precisely what this book will do for so many people. My question is, ultimately, do you feel like this book was written for you , for others who are hurting with a similar type of pain, or something else altogether?When Henry finally dies, Delaney very specifically ropes off what he will and won't tell the reader: