The Delivery Room
A Novel
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
It is 1998. In the safe haven of her London office—a room her husband jokingly calls "The Delivery Room"—therapist Mira Braverman listens to the stories of her troubled patients, including an aristocratic woman going through an intense infertility drama, an American journalist who is eager to have a baby, and an irritable divorcé who likes to taunt Mira about her Serbian nationality. As the novel unfolds, Mira discovers she is not as distant from her patients' pain as she might once have been: her husband Peter struggles with illness, NATO's threats against her country grow more serious, and submerged truths from her own past seem likely to erupt.
Compelling, complex, and always deeply human, The Delivery Room is an engaging examination of the incomplete understandings that course between therapist and patient, and a set of variations on the theme of motherhood—as well as a timely meditation on the meanings of wars fought from a distance, when ordinary citizens have to measure their personal griefs against the outrages experienced by those under attack.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A London therapist gets a lesson in pain and empathy in Brownrigg's sparkling latest (after Morality Tale). It's 1998, and Mira Braverman's home office (dubbed "the delivery room" by her husband) overfloweth with troubled types. There's "the Bigot," Howard, a divorced diplomat who needles Mira about her Serbian heritage; "the American," Jess, a single female journalist who longs for a baby; "the Aristocrat," Caroline, who is fighting a battle with infertility; and "the Mourning Madonna," Kate, who lost a daughter in utero. Only when Mira's husband, Peter, is diagnosed with terminal lymphoma is Mira able to empathize with her patients, particularly as Peter's health declines. In many ways, this novel is also about parenting those who long to be mothers and can't, and those who are ambivalent about the responsibilities. Because so much of the novel revolves around sessions, the narrative can become claustrophobic, but patient readers will appreciate Brownrigg's detailed portrayals of the therapist and client dynamic, and the prose is tack sharp and effortlessly lyrical.
