Shondaland spoke with Delaney about Henry, the emotional toll of writing, and how love ultimately binds us all. A Heart That Works is Mr. Delaney’s intimate, unflinching, exploration of what happened – from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that followed through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. All the more reason this radiant memoir deserves the highest admiration. Knowing he was attempting the impossible, Rob Delaney set out to do it anyway. SCOTT NEUMYER: You’ve written a book about the most horrifying thing that can happen to a person, the death of their child, and now you’ve likely been talking about it in multiple interviews as well. How are you holding up?

SN: The book is beautiful, and it’s such a celebration of Henry’s life. It also feels very much like a private journal in ways, almost like a diary. Is this something that you were writing as everything was going on with Henry and his treatment, or was this something that it took you a while to sit down and decide you needed to write?It was masterful, bring some tissues. I learned so much, about grief, joy, forbearance, kindness and family. A great read. Delaney writes beautifully about how caring for – and loving – his son became almost an addiction; and the way he writes about missing the calluses that develop on his fingers from operating his son’s suctioning machine was as touching a depiction as it was cruel. To make things almost impossible, more death visits the Delaney family, and it makes the sadness almost insurmountable. But of course they have to deal with it.

I loved this on The New Yorker: There’s Nothing Decorous About Rob Delaney’s Grief. Rob Delaney Author BioMy first introduction to Rob Delaney was on Elizabeth Day’s brilliant podcast, How to Fail. During the episode, he spoke with great candour about his son Henry, who – aged one – was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and later, devastatingly, died. Suffering an incredible tragedy, like the loss of Delaney’s 2-year-old son Henry to a brain tumor in 2018, is something no one should ever have to experience, much less have to write about. But to then have to relive this very tragedy again as I ask him questions about his book? Yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me either.

This was a deeply moving book. Honestly, I can't imagine the agony Mr. Delaney and his family experienced. Henry Delaney was a year old when he was diagnosed with a tumor the size of an apple on his brain stem. He was two when he died. A Heart That Works is a brilliant telling of his son's short life from birth, to cancer diagnosis, through treatment, and ultimately his death. This just isn't the way life is supposed to go. You're supposed to be born, you grow up, you get old, and THEN you die. All of which is to ask the question: is it possible to write a critical review of someone who is bearing witness, in writing, to the incalculable pain and emotional chaos suffered on the death of their young child? Does the weight of its emotional punch do away with the need for an anaemic assessment of a writer’s craft? Or is the very act of writing something so transgressively raw and open, a cry for these experiences to be normalised – and therefore a request for it to be treated like any other book? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be mean if it were awful, at least publicly. Which makes me worry that I’ll sound disingenuous when I say that it gives me great pleasure, and no pleasure at all, to write that Rob Delaney’s new book is both overwhelmingly moving and, in any other way you might assess a book, excellent. Much as I wish he hadn’t had to write it, I am glad he did, because such deaths do happen, but largely in private Delaney talks about the madness of his grief, the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose when you’re the one left behind.Blue Badge holders and those with access requirements can be dropped off on the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road (the road between the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery). This is a beautiful, beautiful book. I cried through a quarter of it. The five year anniversary of Conor’s passing from brain cancer is approaching and Rob Delaney puts into words SO well what that experience is like. This book is raw and heartbreaking and of course, since he’s a comedian, it’s just the right amount of funny. I want to say so much more about it but don’t feel I can do it justice. I read an excerpt of Rob Delaney's book A Heart That Works in the Sunday Times last autumn. After reading the article and crying through most of it, I knew that I both wanted to, and simultaneously didn't want to, read the entire book. My four children are the same age as the author's which makes it all the more painful and heartrending to read. The voice behind the hit show Catastrophe, actor, writer, and comedian Rob Delaney probably didn’t want to talk to me, and for good reason. He certainly didn’t want to be in a position to be able to write his latest book, A Heart That Works, either. But he felt compelled. I think this book is a small gift to others who are grieving. It doesn’t give any answers, but Rob’s beautifully vulnerable journey helps wrap us in a blanket that we are not alone in our feelings. Lots of pain and grief with a dose of humor.

A heart-wrenching and impressively self-aware story of a father living through the death of his young child. Rob Delaney, comedian and writer, shares the painful journey of his third son, Henry, being diagnosed with a brain tumor at age one. Henry passes away a year and a half later after many surgeries and chemo treatment. I love how Delaney writes about Henry, always introducing him in words like 'my beautiful boy', forever reminding you how much he misses him. Overall, his writing flows well, and can be quite.. peppery, regarding cursing, if that's something that is important to you (if you can't curse when your child is dying, when can you?). Read this entire book in one sitting. Cried all the way through apart from when I was bawling, rather than sobbing. Finished it and went straight upstairs to hug my son. What a story.SN: You also write about how people have asked if writing the fourth season of Catastrophe was therapeutic, but I want to switch that up a little bit: Was writing this book, if not therapeutic, was it cathartic in a way? Spiegel & Grau has acquired North American rights to A Heart That Works, a memoir by actor Rob Delaney, from Meredith Miller at United Talent Agency, working in partnership with Avalon. Describing how he and his sister are there for each other: "When one of us cries to the other, we don't try to fix it; we don't stammer platitudes. We just listen and hold."