Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Amazing Book November 18, 2008
J. Siciliano (Pennsylvania)
As the mother of a stillborn son, I could not believe how well Elizabeth described so much of what I felt in that first year after my son died in labor. Thank-you Elizabeth for telling this story to help others understand.
Someone is Missing and It's a Happy Life November 10, 2008
Story Circle Book Reviews (www.storycirclebookreviews.org)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the story of a very private and personal loss: the loss of Elizabeth McCracken's baby, stillborn, in the ninth month of what had been a fairly normal pregnancy. As an author, McCracken recognizes the healing powers of the written word and the need to put all of this down on paper. She has done a remarkable job. This is a poignant memoir told, not just with obvious sadness, but with a soft, healing humor as well.
McCracken was in her mid-thirties, and a self-professed spinster, "a woman no one imagined marrying," when she met the writer Edward Carey. Life changed; they fell in love, moved in together, travelled and lived in various locations, pursuing jobs and fellowships. After a few years, they married. They were living in France, working on their respective books, when Elizabeth discovered that she was pregnant. All seemed fine until the end of the pregnancy when things suddenly went terribly wrong and Elizabeth had to go through the agony of delivering her stillborn son. For most of us, the pain and sadness described is unfathomable. McCracken tells us that after the baby they'd been calling Pudding dies, "what was killing was how nothing had changed. We'd been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old life."
It is difficult not to shed tears as this story unfolds. Joy and hope are such a huge part of any pregnancy; we see only the future. There is no emotional roadmap with which we come equipped to deal with such loss. Elizabeth shares the ways that she and her husband have come through with the love and support of their families and friends. "To know that other people were sad made Pudding more real," she writes. The story reminded me of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Both memoirs describe such a deep personal loss and to me, the absolute need to write the story. This memoir has the quality of a journal--it is just so personal.
McCracken and her husband are now the parents of a second child, Gus, born one year and five days after Pudding. Gus, as McCracken points out, is not a "miracle baby" as some might say about "stories like ours," but "a nice everyday baby." Theirs is now a "happy life, and someone is missing."
by Janet Caplan
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Perfect! October 29, 2008
E. Hamilton (MA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
An Exact Replica....in coming across the review for this book my heart skipped a beat. I knew I HAD to read it. Having our first child stillborn brings a connection to the full understanding of what this book is all about! I had goose bumps reading reviews and was chomping at the bit waiting for the book to arrive. We had a healthy son 18 months after the stillbirth of our baby Grace but still nothing will ever replace her! I can remember the day, exactly a year prior to Pudding's birth, as though it was yesterday. This book had me crying, laughing and being right where I wanted to be.
Elizabeth McCracken is right on with this portrayal and more importantly it is a loving and fantastic memoir to her beloved Pudding.
You'll never put this book down!
riveting account of love and grief October 25, 2008
Nina Bennett (Newark DE)
McCracken's memoir is at once an elegy to her first, stillborn child, and a love song to her second,live born son. Her writing is lyrical, a slow dance weaving back and forth between the two pregnancies. The trepidation accompanying a subsequent pregnancy is eloquently and accurately expressed. She is adamant that the live birth of her second son does not erase the still birth of her first.
McCracken successfully documents the often nebulous experience of bereaved families in her closing words: "It's a happy life, but someone is missing. It's a happy life, and someone is missing." That and is important, as it affirms the experience of bereaved families that it is possible to grieve and remember while celebrating new life. Her book is a testament to love and hope, a song of grief and joy.
Extremely relevant to child loss of any age October 23, 2008
D. FRANKS (San Jose, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a Mom who lost her first-born son at the age of 19, I have read many books pertaining to child loss. This book will stay with me forever as one of the most honest and soul baring accounts coming as close as you can to what it is like.
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