This Lovely Life

This Lovely LifeVicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a pound at birth, at twenty three weeks' gestation. During the delivery she begged the doctors to let her babies go she knew all too well that at twenty three weeks they could very well die and, if they survived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities. However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter died just four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiply

Vicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a pound at birth, at twenty-three weeks' gestation. During the delivery she begged the doctors to let her babies go -- she knew all too well that at twenty-three weeks they could very well die and, if they survived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities. However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter died just four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiply disabled: blind, nonverbal, and dependent on a feeding tube.

This Lovely Life tells, with brilliant intensity, of what became of the Forman family after the birth of the twins -- the harrowing medical interventions and ethical considerations involving the sanctity of life and death. In the end, the longdelayed first steps of a five-year-old child will seem like the fist-pumping stuff of a triumph narrative. Forman's intelligent voice gives a sensitive, nuanced rendering of her guilt, her anger, and her eventual acceptance in this portrait of a mother's fierce love for her children.


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 07/23/2009
ISBN: 9780547232751
Pages: 263
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.80d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 05/18/2009 pg. 49
Kirkus Reviews 06/15/2009