An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

Elizabeth McCracken's memoir of a 39 year-old woman giving birth to a still-born child is sad, reflective, harrowing, even at times funny, but always perspicacious and on target. Elizabeth and her husband, both authors, spent a year in France, including seven months in a country farmhouse, that ironically used to be a home for unwed mothers. This is where she hired a French midwife after giving up on three French doctors. She begins the book with a story of a very poorly attended book reading in Florida, where one woman says out of the blue, you should write a funny book about a couple losing a child. This occurred before Elizabeth married, or had any thought of ever giving birth. Just after the birth, "the incident" as she calls it, the nurse asks the author in French if she'd like to talk to a woman of God, the nurse assuming that they are Catholic like most of the nearby population. Her husband translates this as, would you like to speak to a dwarf. And yes, he--they--would. It seemed oddly appropriate and perhaps even cheering. But recovering from this stillbirth, takes time. In fact, the author insists she will never truly recover. But along the way you learn about life in France, her first pregnancy, including the nickname they gave the unborn child, "Pudding." One of the most touching scenes is when the couple is asked to write the name of the dead baby on his birth/death certificate, and they decide that yes, it has to be Pudding, not John or Michael or Robert. Elizabeth writes this memoir, as she informs us, with her new son on her lap, and describes how her life for this new healthy baby makes her love the first child even more, and vice versa. Not the book for the expectant mother-to-be, but a compelling read for others. Surprisingly, the book imparts a sense of hope, of life affirmed.