"I suppose I think we have a rainbow of emotions. I don't know which color corresponds to which emotion; perhaps blue is sadness, red is passion, and so on. That doesn't so much matter. I still have all the colors in my rainbow after Henry's death. Name an emotion: I can still feel it, and often do. Leah and our boys and I laugh every day. But now there's a band of black in my rainbow, too, that wasn't there before. Or if it was there, I couldn't see it before Henry died."
Knowing of Rob Delaney as an aggressively hysterical comedian with a robust Twitter feed, I approached "A Heart That Works" with an open mind, knowing a little bit about the tragic illness of Delaney's son, Henry.
Delaney deftly balances comedy and tragedy in a way that evokes Patton Oswalt's "Annihilation," creating a beautiful, empathetic tribute to his lost son. Delaney's stark vulnerability is run through with staggeringly insightful sentiments and a brave willingness to accept each emotion on its own terms.
And yes, sometimes those terms involve hilarious outbursts against red tape.
"The growing number of politicians and newspaper owners who aim to privatize the NHS need to fuck off ten times, then gargle a big bowl of diarrhea. I pray that Vishnu purifies your heart in a dream tonight, or, failing that, that you fall down a deep well in February."
"A Heart That Works" will have most readers alternating between crying and laughing, and some will leave the book thanking Delaney and his family for their willingness to share their experience and help us get to know Henry in some small but vital way.
"Rather, I suspect I am a glass of water, and when I die, the contents of my glass will be poured into the same vast ocean that Henry's glass was poured into, and we will mingle together forever. We won't know who's who. And you'll get poured in there one day, too."
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