Monday, June 03, 2013

Pg. 99: Monica Wesolowska's "Holding Silvan"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Holding Silvan: A Brief Life by Monica Wesolowska.

About the book, from the publisher:
In the opening of Holding Silvan, Monica Wesolowska gives birth to her first child, a healthy-seeming boy who is taken from her arms for “observation” when he won’t stop crying. Within days, Monica and her husband have been given the grimmest of prognoses for Silvan. They must make a choice about his life. The story that follows is not of typical maternal heroism. There is no medical miracle here. Instead, we find the strangest of hopes. In clear and unflinching prose, this startling memoir bears witness not only to a son’s brief life but to the evolution of the writer herself – from Catholic girl yearning after sainthood to maternal struggle to give her son the best she can. The result is a page-turning testimony to the power of love. By raising ethical questions about how a death can be good in the age of modern medicine, Holding Silvan becomes a paean to what makes life itself good. Whether you have faced great loss or not, this book will change your life.
Learn more about the book and author at Monica Wesolowska's website.

The Page 99 Test: Holding Silvan.

--Marshal Zeringue