Everything was going right in the delivery room until, suddenly, it wasn't. The baby's brain was damaged; the new mother, unprepared for the life she and her family would now be living.
In dense, lyrical prose, Jody Gelb pays tribute to her daughter's short life. SHE MAY BE LYING DOWN BUT SHE MAY BE VERY HAPPY is a marvel of compression and potency. Gelb lays her experience bare in the full range of its emotional complexity, from profound suffering to ecstatic joy. It is a mother-daughter memoir scrubbed of sentiment. SHE MAY BE LYING DOWN BUT SHE MAY BE VERY HAPPY isn't so much a book as the naked truth of being human in this imperfect world.
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: This is a uniquely told memoir described as a tale of a mother and her relationship to her severely brain-damaged daughter. Gelb writes movingly about the struggles inherent in raising a child with special needs, but the narrative is somewhat sidetracked by focus on the author's husband and their complicated relationship.
Prose: The prose of this book is poetic and honest. The work reads in a somewhat stream of consciousness style, a unique choice for memoir.
Originality: Gelb's memoir is distinctive in its prose style and the work's candid, unsentimental approach to telling a heartbreaking story.
Character/Execution: This is an unflinchingly honest memoir, which presents the hardest parts of Gelb and her family's life. This stated, the writing style results in a somewhat guarded tone that may cause readers to feel distanced from the author.
Date Submitted: November 29, 2023
