IRIS login | Reed College home Volume 92, No. 1: March 2013
Holding Silvan grabs you by the heart and won’t let go. It’s not just the subject matter: the author’s brutally introspective log of her passage into a motherhood that pitches her into a vortex of moral decisions. It’s also the tact and generosity with which she tells the life story of a cherished infant boy and the struggles of his parents, extended family, and community of friends, nurses, and physicians, to come to terms with the unthinkable. At issue is the question: how to decide for one who is constitutionally incapable of deciding whether to let him live or die?
This memoir (which includes an introduction by Erica Jong ) retains the urgency of the diary on which she draws for her account, but—and here is its brilliance—takes its argument from the Book of Job, its structure from ancient Christian martyrology, and its philosophical problem from Dostoevsky. The birth of a child doomed to die becomes a test of faith, of character, and of the limits of love. Monica’s luminous, laconic prose, with its relentless staccato of short sentences, creates a surface tension of restraint over a turbulence of emotions—terror, anger, despair, grief, tenderness, and joy—that explode in sporadic notations of the author’s anguish and hope. With impeccable aesthetic judgment, the author charts the stages of a wrenching ethical journey that ends in a resounding affirmation of the ultimate fairness of life.
LATEST COMMENTS
John Peara Baba 1990 John died of a broken heart from losing his mom and then his...
kodachrome - 2 days ago
Carol Sawyer 1962 Who wrote this obit? I'm writing something about Carol Sawyer...
MsLaurie Pepper - 1 month ago
William W. Wissman MAT 1969 ...and THREE sisters. Sabra, the oldest, Mary, the middle, and...
riclf - 3 months ago
Lamar Crowson 1948 He had a very different approach to playing Beethoven, and was a...
Marlette van der Merwe - 6 months ago
Hugh Stanford McLeod 1957 He also contributed to medical science in another way. When he was...
Dominic - 9 months ago
taliesin-namkai-meche-2016 I am sad that I did not get to meet this great young man so brave...
fanz fanz - 11 months ago