I am a psychiatrist-novelist. As a psychiatrist, I’ve seen many patients struggling with infertility and miscarriage. As a novelist, I became intrigued with the idea of having false pregnancy (pseudocyesis) be a key element in a character’s life. My primary goal was to create an engrossing good read. I also wanted to show the psychological trauma of infertility/miscarriage. Another goal was to portray psychiatric patients, the psychiatrists who treat them, and psychiatry in a realistic way. I’m so gratified by the reader reviews: “gripping”...“spell-binding”...“rich, satisfying read”...“a page-turner”...“Illuminating”.
One miscarriage is unsettling, and a series of them can be severely disrupting to a woman and to her marriage. So what if, unexpectedly, a baby appeared at their doorstep? The possible moral choices that must be made would be complex and powerful, and would affect many lives then and into the future.
This novel brings us into the lives of such a couple. Living on an otherwise unpopulated island, they see a rowboat washed ashore that contains a dead man and a live infant. I found compelling the moral dilemma which confronts them: try to find the infant’s mother, or keep the child. The husband is swayed by his wife’s agonizing pleas for them to keep the child as their own. But years later the husband identifies the biological mother, and a new set of choices is presented to him - and to us, the readers.
The years-long New York Times bestseller and Goodreads Best Historical Novel that is “irresistible…seductive…with a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page” (O, The Oprah Magazine)—soon to be a major motion picture from Spielberg’s Dreamworks starring Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz, and Alicia Vikander, and directed by Derek Cianfrance.
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young,…
This is a novel of magical realism. I like the way it blends magic with descriptions of reality as it explores the deep trauma of miscarriage and stillbirth. Like The End of Miracles, The Snow Child shows how fantasy can sometimes block out what is a painful reality. Here, a bereaved couple is learning to survive in the Alaskan wilderness. They build a child out of snow. Next day, the snow child has disappeared. But then a little girl suddenly appears, a child of the woods. How will they relate to her and learn to love this wild child? The novel explores the mysteries of how hearts can be healed after a tragic loss.
A bewitching tale of heartbreak and hope set in 1920s Alaska, Eowyn Ivey's THE SNOW CHILD was a top ten bestseller in hardback and paperback, and went on to be a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Alaska, the 1920s. Jack and Mabel have staked everything on a fresh start in a remote homestead, but the wilderness is a stark place, and Mabel is haunted by the baby she lost many years before. When a little girl appears mysteriously on their land, each is filled with wonder, but also foreboding: is she what she seems, and can they find room in…
The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth
by
Verlin Darrow,
A Buddhist nun returns to her hometown and solves multiple murders while enduring her dysfunctional family.
Ivy Lutz leaves her life as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka and returns home to northern California when her elderly mother suffers a stroke. Her sheltered life is blasted apart by a series…
This extraordinary book combines a lived experience with the powerful writing of an accomplished author. Unexpectedly, in her mid-thirties, she finds a man to love and a baby is on the way. But then, the agony: the baby dies in utero in the ninth month. She tackles head-on the deepest feelings and questions this brings. I like the way she unsparingly describes her experience and her grief, and then how she processes this and finds a way to move on.
"This is the happiest story in the world with the saddest ending," writes Elizabeth McCracken in her powerful, inspiring memoir. A prize-winning, successful novelist in her 30s, McCracken was happy to be an itinerant writer and self-proclaimed spinster. But suddenly she fell in love, got married, and two years ago was living in a remote part of France, working on her novel, and waiting for the birth of her first child.
This book is about what happened next. In her ninth month of pregnancy, she learned that her baby boy had died. How do you deal with and recover from…
This is a book written by a psychologist who herself experienced a miscarriage that traumatized her. The author is frank and open about her own feelings and those of her husband. I like how beneficial this is: it brings a sense of normality to feelings women have that may seem frightening to them. There are also suggestions of what can help, as well as supplemental recommended readings. The book is a combination of memoir, reading companion, and advice-provider.
Miscarriage: It can devastate an individual, a couple, and family to their very core. And yet, this painfully common human experience is so rarely talked about. How do we continue functioning? How do we tell our partner what we need? How do we deal with emotional dumpster fire that is the aftermath of a miscarriage? How do we not kill the fifth person who tells us “You can always have another baby.”
With unflinching honesty and fearless humor, psychologist Dr. Sunita Osborn addresses the relevant but often unspoken topics following a miscarriage including the impact of miscarriage on a relationship,…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
Children who have known their mother was pregnant with their sibling and then had a miscarriage have psychological needs that must be met. They notice an emotional change in their parents, but don’t understand why that is. And their own hopes, or fears, about a sibling - companion or rival - are likely still there, unanswered. The best course is to give the child the opportunity to address these feelings and fears. As a psychiatrist, I am keenly aware of the child's need for this - as well as the difficulty it may pose for the grieving parents. A sensitive and informed picture book like this one is a good tool for parents to use with young children.
A Book for Children and Parents Who Have Experienced Pregnancy Loss This beautifully illustrated, simple, clear story is designed to help a young child understand what has happened when there has been a pregnancy loss. The book addresses the sadness that a child experiences when the anticipated baby has died. The child's fears and feelings of guilt are addressed as well as other confusing feelings. Perhaps most important, the book includes the family's experience of going on with life while always remembering their baby. The child reading the book is left with a sense of reassurance that life continues and…
The End of Miracles is a novel that brings readers up close to a suspenseful journey, fueled by loss, across the boundaries between sanity and depression, madness and healing.
After years battling infertility, a woman’s seemingly-miraculous pregnancy brings joy. The pregnancy, however, ends tragically in a late miscarriage. Margo is devastated and emotionally shaken. Soon, though, she feels pregnant again and joy returns. But this pregnancy is false. Inevitably, her fantasy clashes with the reality of an ultrasound. Margo unravels psychologically, and her concerned husband takes her to a psychiatric unit. Fearing that the sometimes-chaotic environment there is making her worse, Margo seizes an opportunity to flee. Alone on the city streets, new fantasies propel her to impulsively commit a startling act with harrowing and dangerous consequences for herself and others.
